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

by Diana Butler Bass

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.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Theology, Christian, Spirituality

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2009

About the author

Diana Butler Bass is an author, speaker, and independent scholar specializing in American religion and culture. She holds a PhD in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books, including the bestselling Christianity for the Rest of Us, released by HarperOne in 2006. It was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA Today. Her much-anticipated next book, A People's History of Christianity, will be released in March 2009 from HarperOne. She is currently Senior Fellow at the Cathedral College of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Bass regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues.

Bass blogs at Progressive Revival on Beliefnet and Sojourners' God's Politics. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA Today, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995 to 2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations.

From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality—a project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Bass also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society.

She has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies.

Bass and her husband, Richard, live with their family in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Butler Bass gives a kinder sort of history. She walks through the centuries looking for neglected heroes, and focuses on what has been good in people. Where many historians would expose the dark sides of founding fathers or crusading reformers, Butler-Bass highlights their acts of generosity.
Concerning the theocracy of Calvinist Geneva, she emphasizes medieval Europe's enormous popular demand for community-enforced justice, and adds, "they enacted their own vision of heavenly society in sometimes restrictive ways."

Some readers will feel this is history lite. Maybe I was expecting her to get real and indulge in self-righteous denunciations of other people's hypocrisy. But in an age of almost hopeless division between progressives and fundamentalists, Butler Bass focuses on appreciating big-hearted compassion wherever she finds it. For her, Christianity as a series of experiments in practicing love, and the future of love seems wide open.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

A People’s History of Christianity is not so much a “history” (either scholarly or general) as it is an argument for a return to the roots of Christianity that finds fault with both modern expressions of “liberal” and “conservative” religion. As Bass argues in her introduction, liberal theologians and congregations tend to lose their “devotional” memories; their conservative cousins lose their “ethical” memory. The result is a liberal tradition that’s often little more than a social club; and a conservative tradition that’s often reactionary and mean spirited.

Bass comes from an unabashedly liberal perspective by which I mean she rejects – or is, at least, chary of – Christologies used to justify the state, the Church (in the “big C,” institutional sense), church wealth, war, etc. Her Christ is the preacher who counsels the rich young man in Mark 10:21 to “Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me” and says in 12:29-31, “The first of all the commandments is: `Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. / And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind, and will all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. / And the second, like it, is this: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these”; or the Church as represented by the spirit of Vatican II (though Bass isn’t Catholic herself – I gather she was raised Methodist, and now professes Episcopalianism).

I am not the audience for this book, or not the primary audience. There’s too little in the way of history to engage my interest, and too much theology whose foundation I reject. Full Disclosure: I was raised Catholic in a thoroughly secular, middle-class American family in Missouri. Before my parents’ divorce, we didn’t even go to church. When mom did begin taking us and enrolled my siblings and me in weekly religion classes, I fell in love with Catholic ritual, history and tradition, and the cool robes the priests got to wear, but I was not wedded to (nor even terribly aware of) its theology until I got interested in such topics in college, and then I became an Origenist. It’s been downhill (from the Vatican’s POV) since then.

Which is not to say that I didn’t get something from reading this book. I have scads of post-it notes littering its pages reflecting what I learned of the variety of ways Christians have interpreted Christ’s teachings through the ages, and how the “popular impulse” – often co-opted or suppressed by the institutional Church (cf., the Franciscans** or the Beguines, respectively) – keeps bubbling up to the surface to discomfit the privileged and the comfortable.

**If you want to learn more than you could ever possibly want to know about the medieval Franciscans and the related popular movements that bedeviled the Roman Church, I can’t recommend enough Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

After the Introduction, Bass divides her narrative into five parts:

“The Way” – Early Christianity (AD 100-500)
“The Cathedral” – Medieval Christianity (AD 500-1450)
“The Word” – Reformation Christianity (AD 1450-1650)
“The Quest” – Modern Christianity (AD 1650-1945)
“The River” – Contemporary Christianity (AD 1945-present)

And within those sections (except for the last), each is further divided into a look at “devotion” and at “ethics” – How Christians interpreted the New Testament and how they implemented what they learned in the real world.

For example, in the “Ethics” of “The Way,” Bass recounts how early Christians lived a Christ-centered life: 1. hospitality - all comers were welcome; 2. communalism - all property was held in common by the faithful; 3. peace making - early Christians were pacifists by and large*; 4. aliens - all humans were “neighbors,” even if they remained outside the church.

*St. Valentine, whose feast day we recently celebrated, was a soldier who refused to fight, as was St. Martin of Tours; and one of the chief “crimes” committed by Christians was their refusal to serve in the legions.

An example of some insights found in Bass’s “Devotion” sections: In “The Cathedral,” she devotes much ink to Peter Abelard and Heloise, arguing that they were representative of the interpretation of Christ’s Crucifixion as an expression of God’s infinite love for Man, and not a sacrifice to atone for his myriad sins and to satisfy justice.

There were some fascinating figures in modern Christianity whom I had never heard of such as Vida Scudder (1861-1954). This woman’s interpretation of Christ’s life resulted in a Christian socialism – a vision of an extended monastic society where extremes of wealth and poverty were eliminated so all could pursue devotional works without hindrance. Or Harry Fosdick (1878-1969), who preached “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” in 1922 and embraced evolution because it makes Christianity a religion of hope, implying (as it does) that people can bring about positive change. Evolution leavened with religious yeast transforms humanity’s material existence into human life. (This reminds me of the Buddhist idea that knowledge unguided by wisdom is dangerous. It also reminds me of a short story I read ages ago (written in the ‘50s) where a scientist is convinced to not develop a devastating new technology when an alien gives his toddler a gun and asks him, “Would you give a child a gun?”)

Each period deserves, at a minimum, a book-length treatment of these subjects.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a friend who says that a book earns 5 stars for her if it is better the second time she reads it. I think that's a wonderful system to use. My system for rating a book 5 stars is if it makes me cry. I found myself sobbing through the last 30 pages of A People's History of Christianity.

I picked up this book because it was recommended by a friend. When I found out that Bass counts Phyllis Tickle, Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren, Barbara Brown Taylor, Jim Wallis and Lauren Winner in her circle of friends, I figured she must be alright. Turns out, she's more than just alright.

Bass writes a beautiful narrative of the history of Christianity by focusing on those who are often not included in the history books. She calls them quiet souls and she makes it her mission to give them voice and show us how they have shaped our tradition. One of the things I love most about this book is that it is steeped in feminist ideology, and yet it isn't blatantly so. Those who are weary of feminism will not be turned off by Bass' writing. Here are a few of the women who are included in this book:

Julian of Norwich, the first woman to write a book published in English
Heloise, Abelard's wife who helped Abelard develop his theology of sexuality and intimacy (saucy!)
Hildgard of Bingen, a prophet and a visionary from the 12th century
The Beguin nuns who started charity communities
Katharina Schütz, who encouraged women to speak up during the Reformation period
Anne Askew, a woman arrested for her Protestant beliefs
Elizabeth Hooton, the first female, Quaker preacher
Maria Stewart, a woman who spoke up against slavery in the 19th century

I was unfamiliar with the stories of these women, but I now count each of these women as treasured gifts to the church. Thanks to Bass, their stories as well as many others have been brought to life. She has managed to write a history book that doesn't highlight the violent, corrupt nature of Christianity. Instead she has shown that it truly can be a religion that is driven by social justice and a life of spirituality.

[Drick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book because of the title, and assumed that it would tell a lot of untold stories, like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. In a sense this is what Diane Butler Bass attempts to do. She says she wants to tell an alternative history to the militant story of "Big C Christianity -- Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin and Christian America" (p. 4). Instead her goal is to tell a story of "generative Christianity, a kind of faith that births new possibilities of God's love in the world" (p. 11). Zinn's work takes on the the tendency for history to always be written from the perspective "winners" and instead tells US history from the perspective of those whose stories have been distorted and or silenced by the dominant culture. I had hoped that Bass' book would do something similar by telling the stories of the minority movements within Christian history. such as the Waldensians, the Anabaptists, the Moravians and the Hutterities. Instead she talks of well known figures like Augustine, Francis of Assisi, and so on, who gave a great deal to the Christian faith, but who are hardly lesser known figures.

Perhaps my expectations were misplaced, but I raced through the latter half of the book, just to get it done - not exactly a sign I was engaged by it. However, I must say the epilogue was worth it as she concludes the book with a powerful quote from Jim Wallis on hope and the dynamics of history.

Perhaps for someone who has not read much church history, this would be a good primer, because it does focus on individuals in the history of Christianity who bring out the best of what our faith stands for, as opposed to simply painting a picture of a triumphalist faith in the vein of "Onward Christian Soldiers." Beyond that I can't recommend it and must say I was disappointed.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diana Butler Bass has very openly used Howard Zinn's successful history of the other sides to her specialty, Church History. In A People's History of Christianity she attempts to draw attention to the threads of hospitality, openness, welcoming and love that purport to be at the center of Christianity, but so often seem missing from Christian history. Much like the history of textbooks, Christian history is generally reduced to conflicts and their victors. What's often ignore (or seen only in instances, not as its own narrative) is the constant push for reform that Christianity has maintained from its earliest days to now. Yes, the church messes things up. Yes, the church is also full of people always trying to do things better.

She divides Christian history into five parts, The Way (Early), The Cathedral (Medieval), The Word (Reformation), The Quest (Modern) and The River (Contemporary). Each time period, she asserts, has its share of failing and its share of successes. The ways in which the hospitable current of Christianity manifests itself is depended on the time period, the needs of the people, belief systems, etc.

Her section on the early Church was probably most personally challenging for me. The focus of much of the early church on community and care for all served to remind me exactly how removed I am from a community of faith and that the care that is to be put forward for all people is not something that can be done alone. Honestly, when thinking along those lines I feel like a failure at following Christ, and one who has virtually no way of becoming less of a failure. When I can't get a grasp on the grace that I should show to others then it becomes harder to keep hold of the grace God shows to me. I could stand to offer myself the same hospitality and lack of demands for perfection that I want to offer to others.

Her section on Modern Christianity was also challenging for me, but in a very different way. Despite being a product of modernity I find myself at odds with it often. Its focus on a knowable Truth and on progress toward that does not fit well with my experience of reality as changing, but not progressing. Modernity's effect on Christianity was to treat the sacred scriptures as scientific or historical texts. It was the Enlightenment that gave rise to today's Fundamentalist Christianity. If there is a Truth and we can know it, then everything is set in concrete already. Of course it is the flipside of this that Butler Bass explores in her chapter on Modernity. It was this belief in progress that led liberal Christians to use the church as a vehicle for progress. The abolitionists, the civil rights movement, women in ministry, ecumenism and learning to live in a pluralist society. All of these were part of modern liberal Christianity. I can't deny the good of all these things, but I do question the drive behind them. If Truth is knowable, and if history is moving in a forward direction, then the world (and its inhabitants) is perfectible. It's not just the Browncoat in me that says, "I do not hold to that." I found most of her coverage of liberal Christianity to be self-congratulatory and typical boomer "Look what all we did!" Her inclusion of Hillary Clinton invoking Harriet Tubman in a speech as an example of the thread of equality and freedom smacked more of a celebration of liberal politics than welcoming, servant Christianity.

Ultimately the narrative that Butler Bass tries to offer is hard to follow. Whether that is because of the lack of information about this alternate history due to the domination of what I generally term Imperial Christianity or due to her difficulties in storytelling I cannot say. I found the book a rewarding read overall. I only wish she'd taken more time to tell individual stories and less time seemingly saying "Look what all we did!"

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bass treads lightly around the more difficult and dirty issues surrounding Christianity, switching seamlessly between social reporting and personal anecdote. She posits Christianity as best realized in its post-dogma, post-church, post-conservative form, and though my personal sympathies lean slightly this way, I've heard this message countless times before. I didn't care for Bass's interest in Christian syncretism; mixing and matching your personal faith is all well and good, but she never points out the consequences of trying to make everything mean something, and in the process meaning nothing.

The populism of the book (the main point, obviously) was appreciated and will hopefully reassure those who still think of Christian faith as merely the sum of its worst enforcers. I'm not too optimistic though: the study rescues God from the bolt-throwing judge stereotype, merely to align Him with the cosmic Santa Claus/personal lifestyle guru stereotype. If you hate, fear, or dismiss what you imagine Christianity to stand for, read this book. If you have already developed a working experiential knowledge of the faith, with the necessary complexities, contradictions and nuances, skip it.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps because I was hoping for a history like Howard Zinn's or Eduardo Galeano's. I was very disappointed with this book. I was hoping to read stories of the underside of Christianity - or, better, to read Christianity from the side of the poor, of the underdog, of the marginalized.

There are places where the author rises to the task, but I found the work plodding.I had a hard time getting past the first few chapters. The examples from her contemporary experience were, to be kind, distracting - except for a very few which provided some helpful insight.

I think would this could better be called a "liberal's" history of Christianity, whereas I was looking for a radical history of Christianity where stories of Jan Hus, the Beguines, Mother Mary McCauley, and Dorothy Day would be treated in some depth. We need a radical people's history of Christianity. Maybe Robert Ellsberg's ALL SAINTS is a good starting point (though he does put his "saints" in a chronological order).

A people's history should be about the people. I sometimes thought this was more a middle class people's history, tied to a bourgeois US understanding of Christianity that wants to be liberal, free-thinking, tolerant, etc.

What is especially disappointing is the failure to consider much outside of Europe and the US. This is a very omission. I know that the author said she was not considering this aspect of the history of Christianity.

[Dave Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an answer to the question "Why would I ever want to be a Christian when the Christian Religion is responsible for such horrific and tragic events throughout history?". Diana (a history prof) concedes the horrific events, but notes that History is the story of the rich, powerful and successful. Christianity shines among the least, the last and the lost in society, and their stories are rarely ever told. This book brings to light the stories of Christian service, love, and selfless sacrifice by Christians from the first century until now. Some of the people and stories I knew of, but most were unknown to me. What a delight to see history this way - through the eyes of the common folk.

[Autumn Rybin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite quote:

In April 2008 Matthew Felling of WAMU radio in Washington, DC, interviewed Dr. Gordon Livingston, a psychiatrist who for more than thirty years has been studying human happiness. Felling asked the predictable question: “What is it? What makes people happy?”

Livingston responded by positing three things: meaningful work, meaningful relationships, and a sense of hope for the future. The first two are, in many ways, self-explanatory. But hope for the future? How is that achieved?

“By having a realistic sense of history,” Livingston responded. He insisted that seeing the past on its own terms—not through the romantic gaze of nostalgia—is intrinsic to human flourishing. Nostalgia, he declared, is the enemy of hope. It tricks people into believing that their best days are gone. A more realistic view of history, he insisted, envisions the past as a theater of experience, some good and some bad, and opens up the possibility of growth and change. Our best days are ahead, not behind. Hope for the future.

[Trinki Brueckner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written, easy to read. Bass divides Christianity into periods: early church, medieval church, reformation, modernity, contemporary time. She does not delve into doctrine but into the movement and orientation of seekers in each time period.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. But it was not what I expected and it could have been much better. With the title it has, I expected a retelling of Christian history with a focus on figures, groups and movements that do not get top billing in more traditional history books. Bass says she is specifically going to avoid a way of telling that focuses on C’s – Christendom, Calvinism and so on. The first part of the book mentions many figures from the early church who are familiar to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of church history.

This made me wonder who the target audience for this book was. With so many familiar stories, I do not think it is pastors or seminary graduates. Further, every single chapter (or at least, every one I recall) began with some sort of contemporary illustration. Thus it is not a straight up history book. This is odd because it gets its title from a straight up history book, of much longer length, which was a best seller. I suppose Bass, or the publisher, did not think such a history of Christianity would sell.

Ultimately, this book reads more like a Christian spirituality sort of book. That is, the kind of book people read who want to grow in their faith. But rather than being held together by Bible passages, this book is held together by the story of church history. Such a book is valuable, any book that introduces people to Christians who have gone before and manages to inspire and not just inform is worthy of a wide reading. Yet, and maybe I am just stuck on the title, I expected a history book.

As the story moves closer to present day, Bass does manage to tell more stories from the margins. Maybe it is a case that such lesser-known stories have not survived from ancient days so she had few options till she got to more modern times. At the same time, there are stories of people she could have mentioned but did not from more ancient days, fringe movements we do know about. And I would have loved her to take a stab at painting a picture of how normal, everyday Christians lived in the early or medieval church.

Oh well, it is what it is. Truly it is a good book, worth a read by any Christian. Just do not expect history or anything comparable to Zinn’s work after which it is named.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of anecdotes from different historical eras on how people have interacted with Jesus and his teaching. The author is certainly "progressive" in her theological preferences. Even as someone on the more conservative side of thought, I could appreciate the beauty of these stories (... mixed with a healthy dose of the *nose scrunch* I get when things get a little too left field for me). Overall it is very readable and organized quite clearly. A good companion to the more standard church history narratives with which many of us laymen are familiar.

[Bcoghill Coghill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best church history I have read but it is more than that. It is a one volume story that relates, in every part, to what is going on in our church today.
It kind of gives me hope.
I will recommend to all of my churchy friends.

[G L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not going to lie. The book is really good. The audio narrator is not. I believe this is Butler Bass' first book--if not the first, certainly it came very early in her career as a published and public theologian. I'm aware that unproven authors often get stuck with publisher's choices that they don't like. Fortunately the more recent books are read by Butler Bass herself, and she does a good job (not all authors do).

I'd give the text 4.5 stars, but the crummy narrator dropped this particular reading experience to 3.5 stars. Do read the book!

[Tonya Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent historical overview of Christian faith through the centuries. it hasn't always been like it is now and there is hope for the future of faith.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN ATTEMPT TO SHOW THE RELEVANCE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY TO MODERN TIMES

Diana Butler Bass is a former Religious Studies professor at several institutions. She wrote in the Introduction to this 2012 book of a conversation with a friend of hers, who told her, “I don’t have any trouble with Jesus. It’s all the stuff that happened AFTER Jesus that makes me mad.”

She muses, “I have heard many others say similar things. Jesus fascinates millions, but Christianity, the religion that began with Jesus, leaves countless people cold. What happened after Jesus---oppression, heresy trials, schisms, inquisitions, witch hunts, pogroms, and religious wars---witnesses to much human ambition and cruelty. The things people do in Jesus’s name often contradict his teachings… This dismal historical record surely was not what Jesus intended as he preached a merciful kingdom based on the transformative power of God’s love…

“I share my friend’s concerns. She was asking moral and theological questions of history. Where is God in the midst of this? Shouldn’t a faith be judged on the actions of its followers? Does God act in human history? She had concluded, as many people do, that if God is in the Christian story, then God must be indifferent or evil. If God is not in the story, then why bother? For spiritual searchers and secular people alike, the Christian God is not worth the trouble of the questions that history raises.” (Pg. 1-2)

She continues, “liberal Christians claim that human history is not God’s fault. People in the past failed to live up to Jesus’s ideals; therefore history is essentially a litany of Christian mistakes… Other, more conservative Christians see God everywhere. From their perspective, God controls history, with a divine finger moving every actor and action. Natural and human evils are then God’s judgment on sin. History serves as a moral lesson for individuals to submit to the saving work of Jesus or face the consequences in this life and beyond.” (Pg. 2)

She adds, “I accept none of these conclusions regarding the history of Christianity. Since I was 18… the history of Christianity has fascinated me… I loved the stories of the unexpected mercy of God in [Christians’] lives… Encountering them led me to the academic study of church history in seminary and graduate school. For a decade I worked as a college professor, introducing undergraduates to 2,000 years of Christian history in 14 weeks or less… The Christian past raises meaningful contemporary issues… By discovering the other side of the story, God’s spirit might be discerned in Christian history. What happened after Jesus may well surprise us.” (Pg. 3-4)

She explains, “This book is not about lost memory. Rather, it is about memory found and the ways in which Christian history tethers contemporary faith to ancient wisdom… posttraditional people still hanker for spiritual inspiration, wanting to hear stories that strengthen our connection with God and with our neighbors… the tale of Western Christianity’s triumphal spread, has largely failed to speak to these contemporary longings. But that does not mean Christian faith has failed. There exists a different story.. of generative Christianity, a kind of faith that births new possibilities of God’s love into the world. Whereas militant Christianity tramples over all, generative Christianity transforms the world through humble service to all. It is not about victory; it is about following Christ in order to seed human community with grace.” (Pg. 10-11)

She states, “[This book] makes two interrelated claims. First, lived Christianity … is best experienced as a community that remembers the ways in which Christian people have enacted the Great Commandment in different times and places. This history is less a magisterial narrative and more like a collection of campfire tales---discrete stories that embody Christian character, virtue, suffering, and commitment as people ‘go and do likewise.’… The second… claim is that after decades of struggle, moderate and liberal Christianity is experiencing an unexpected renewal in North America. Many people now refer to this energized cluster as ‘progressive’ or ‘emerging’ Christianity… I refer to it as generative Christianity…. Without a sense of history, progressive Christianity remains unmoored, lacking the deep confidence that comes from being part of a community over time. What progressive Christians need to understand is that ‘emerging’ Christianity… is not new… [It] is a reemerging tradition that has always been the beating heart of Christian history.” (Pg. 12)

She suggests, “Progressive faith is not about winning. When progressivism becomes hubris, it always fails. Instead, ancient tradition, deeply formed in the idea of spiritual progress, insisted that progressive faith was about humility---our lives and the world transformed through God’s beauty. This, of course, does not fit on a bumper sticker or work very well in a party platform. But it should give progressive Christians pause, always remembering progress is a journey, not a destination.” (Pg. 57)

She recounts, “We… share with [the Middle Ages] the uneasy sense of being in the middle. The Middle Ages is named for the time between the ancient church and the modern one, with apparently little independent existence of its own. We too live in a historical middle. What was modern is quickly fading into the past; what will be is yet to come. Thus historians call our time postmodern, a discomforting and vague moniker if ever there was one. With no positive sense of identity, we, like them, stumble into the cathedral seeking some meaning for our spiritual lives.” (Pg. 90)

She reports, “Since the birth of Christianity and the subsequent emergence of Islam in the 600s, these two great faiths have contended for territory and adherents, with the Jews caught in the middle… each claims to reform some corruption of the earlier faith. When the Quran denied the Christian doctrine of the Trinity… Christians responded by calling Islam a heresy… From this inauspicious beginning, Christianity and Muslims competed for both converts and territory on the battlefield.” (Pg. 123)

She observes, “Many contemporary people are searching for authenticity in spirituality and religion. They are looking for experiences and communities in which words and actions interweave, where Christianity is both proclaimed and embodied congruently and cogently… Part of the problem of contemporary Christianity is that it has not been what it says it is. In the West it seems hypocritical and phony; its words and actions collide. A new reformation would find old wisdom in the 16th century’s living-giving practices of the word.” (Pg. 155-156)

She notes, “One of the major differences between modern Christianity and earlier forms of faith emerged in ethics. Through much of Christian history ethics amounted to charity, spiritual practices of aiding the distressed or alleviating the suffering of the poor. Only rarely did it occur to Christians that they might be able to change the actual conditions that created poverty, violence, and oppression. Christians typically accepted social structures as part of the divine order. Thus Christian ethics tended to acquiesce to the circumstances in which human beings found themselves, preferring instead to bandage those most harmed by poverty, illness, and war. Ethics was doing good works toward one’s neighbor.” (Pg. 247)

She concludes, “I hope it is clear that no period of church history is superior to another. Rather, each time unfolds on its own historical merits, as Christians struggle to enact Jesus’s command to love God and neighbor… [This book] is ultimately a history of hope---that regular people often ‘get it’ better than the rich, the famous, and the powerful… We can practice God’s love and universal hospitality in a world of strangers. That is the tradition of the church---faith, hope, and love entwined, and the greatest of these is love.” (Pg. 308-310)

While this book is not a detailed recitation of historical FACTS, its views will appeal to many Christians of the progressive/emerging type.

[John Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously, what Bass's project was meant to do is rather admirable. Just as Zinn put together a people's history of the United States, she wanted to do the same for Christianity and emphasize what people were actually experiencing as Christians through the centuries. For attempting to do that, I applaud Bass. For sort of doing it, I applaud Bass.

For starters, Bass's attempt to focus on lesser-known figures from Christian history is nice. Lesser-known for laypersons anyway, which is fine, except that if you've taken a course or two on Christian history then you may not learn much from reading this. Still, you might be pleasantly surprised about the works that Bass focuses on by the more well-known figures of Christian history. That part is good. As I read this book, I realized, though, that it's nearly impossible to actually recreate what the people of Christian history were experiencing. Most of our history is given to us through the eyes of the major figures and the wealthy. Zinn's book works because we know more about the common person after the year 1500 or so than we do before that period. Bass's book unfortunately suffers because of that.

Another reason that Bass's work suffers is that she's not strictly attempting to write about the people's history. On a biased note, I'll say that if she were trying to do that, she'd have included Soren Kierkegaard's critiques of Christianity and the people who lead/believe in Christianity. The major problem here is that Bass tells this history of Christianity in the lens of the contemporary "emergent" movement, as a means to ground the emergent movement in history. This book is supposed to be a sort of model for where the emergent principles can go from here and that we don't need to think of the emergent principles as rootless. So, "A People's History" really means, "Can we see contemporary theology rooted in the past?" Such a book is fine, though I would have been less interested in it if I knew that's what it would be. My beef being that Bass should have titled and marketed the book appropriately.

Strange to say, I think this book could have benefited by being longer. Again, to compare it to Zinn's work, which this is clearly modeled after, Zinn's work is maybe twice as long, if not longer, and covers a fourth of the chronological time that Bass's work does--in just one country, too. There's no question that Bass's work is backed by scholarship, but if she dug a little deeper this book would have been much better and covered its topic more appropriately.

[James Klagge · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author spoke in Roanoke a couple weeks ago. One comment she made that struck me was when the church does not know its own history, it is like a person who has Alzheimer's. That was a striking image, but it seems to me an exaggeration. She seeks to bring out the good figures and events in Christian history--as a sort of inspiration to liberal/progressive Christians. She may be right that many Christians do not know that history, but it was pretty familiar to me.
One amazing thing I did not know about: In 1548 Protestants and Catholics in Biberach, Germany, built a church that has 2 naves, a Lutheran one and a Catholic one. (The local, Catholic, emperor lacked the military resources to rid the town of its Lutherans.) Apparently these were not uncommon in the wake of the Reformation. Anyway, the Catholic services were 5-6am, 8-11, and noon-1pm; the Lutheran services were 6-8am, and 11-noon. They had to pass each other coming and going. Though churches now share facilities, it generally is not groups that are in significant tension with one another.
Her title--A People's History...--alludes to Howard Zinn's "People's History of the US". That is misleading. Zinn intends to upset traditional notions about US history--afflicting the comfortable. She intends on the other hand to comfort the liberals. This is a fine purpose, but it is not comparable to Zinn.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a refreshing and energizing (read: not dull!) account of the history of Christian faith and practice! These words, from the final chapter, sum up the spirit of the book quite well:

"In these pages I hope it is clear that no period of church history is superior to another. Rather, each time unfolds on its own historical merits, as Christians struggle to enact Jesus's command to love God and neighbor in a unique human context."

This book is more of a 'thematic' study of the epochs in the church after Jesus, rather than an attempt at a straight, linear telling. In each section, Butler Bass captures the attempts of "normal" Christians to follow the greatest commandment: to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. I was struck by what each age contributed to this two-step dance of faith, and found myself appreciating each chapter of history for what they contributed to our ongoing practices today. If you love history, but are tired of the overly dry, faux-objective, anglo-centric versions that are espoused over and over again, you will definitely find this to be an exciting read. Highly, highly recommended!

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bass presented this as an exploration of hidden currents in Christian history, and claims to be inspired by Zinn's project in "A People's History of the United States". But instead of looking for possible futures in the struggles of the past, a history written by the oppressed to counter the history written by the "winners", Bass simply writes an uncritical bourgeois history that may have been unknown in her Methodist/Evangelical/Episcopalian journey but is not unknown to Catholics or Orthodox or Anabaptists. Precious little attention is paid to non-European forms of Christianity, nor to the deep history of experiments in Christianity from below. From the title, I was hoping for a mix of Karen Armstrong and Howard Zinn, but instead found a pretty narrow history of disembodied bourgeois religious identity. Read Armstrong and Zinn instead.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book for those who don't know a lot about the history of Christianity and want a broad view while also being a reasonable length and easy to read. Be warned however, that her goal is to highlight broad trends in christian thinking over the centuries and to bring out the good over the bad. She does not pretend certain events did not happen; rather she is trying to record christianity at its best. I think she does meet this goal but someone who wants more depth and a more complete history should go elsewhere. This does serve as a good starting point though.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was between giving this 4 stars or 5 stars and ended up going for 5 based on how much I highlighted and how many things I wish everyone knew about Christianity. I found her to be fairly accessible, regardless of one's personal belief system, and very straightforward. I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks the militant "Big C" Christianity (as she calls it) is the only form of Christianity that exists, as well as to anyone who wonders how Christians in the first few centuries after Jesus understood their faith down to 1945-today. This is a great book and I hope you'll read it.

[Dennis Wahlquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings. Many of the "historical" snippets were helpful and encouraging that what is important about faith in Christ is rooted in real people throughout the Christian age. Some stories, however, left you with the feeling, "Gee, those medieval people were just like us postmoderns..." Perhaps a bit of a stretch.

I guess I was looking for a history book relating how real people lived out the command to love God and neighbor. But what left me queasy was a feeling that the book is a polemic for postmodern universalism and perhaps even pantheism.

[David A-S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bass is a Christian trying to say, like so many of us, 'Yes, I am a Christian, but not one of those Christians.' So, she has written a book that highlights movements of people that are appealing to progressive Christians. She highlights the mystics (desert to Begunies), prominent females, social reformers, ecumenicists, etc. The book is never meant to be more than a selective history inviting further study that also reinforces folks struggling with their faith in post-modernity. In essence, she is saying: you are not crazy, and you are not alone.

[Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

i've been a churchgoer most of my life so i thought i knew what christianity was all about, and that the way it is now is the way it has always been. I was amazed to find so much information in this i had never heard before, people and ideas that have hugely influenced the version of Christianity we have today in the United States. This and the other book I reviewed, "The House Church" were big influences on my decision to join a house church network.

[Jed · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of Christianity from the perspective of people practicing the faith for the past two thousand years. Bass writes with a breadth of knowledge and experience that should satisfy most readers and the manner in which she writes is straight-forward and easy to read. You won't find any nuanced theological arguments here, but you will come away with a deeper appreciation for those, right up to the present day, who have sought to follow Jesus in deed and not only in word.

[Clinton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty fantastic view of the peoples' practice of Christianity throughout the years, as opposed to the institution of Christianity. It doesn't address the really negative effects of Christianity, but I don't think that was the point. Inspiring, and recommended to any progressive Christian or religious inquirer.

[Marilyn McEntyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

With explicit reference to Howard Zinn, Diana Butler Bass provides an alternative view of Christian history by looking at what ordinary people of were doing in the midst of wars, schisms, church councils, and theological arguments. It's a refreshing and encouraging look at how the Spirit moves even in dark times. Unsentimental and surprising.

[Keith Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a day when Christianity seems to be appropriated by the religious right, Bass gives us a history of other, non-dominant, now-all-but-silenced voices that speak up for pacifism, social justice, radical love, and, yes, communism, etc.

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following the history of "Great Commandment" Christianity (as opposed to "Big C" Christianity), Basss offers a window into a Christianity that has made, is making, and will continue to make a positive difference in the world.