A History of Christianity examines the development of Christianity from its biblical foundations to modern times. While seeking to be comprehensive, historian Joseph Early Jr. centers on key events, people, theological developments, and conflicts that have shaped Christianity over its two-thousand-year history. He also presents the development of Christianity within the social, political, and economic challenges of the times. In doing so, he paints a clear, detailed, and balanced picture of the opportunities and struggles faced by the church and the contributions made by significant people, institutions, and traditions.
A History of Christianity is an ideal introductory survey for undergraduate students and any reader who desires to know more about the broad scope of Christianity.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Chapter One—“Jesus and the World into Which He was Born.”
Chapter Two—“Growth, Persecution, and Defense (ca.30 to ca. 200)”
Chapter Three—“Problems from Within”
Chapter Four—“The Birth of Catholic Orthodoxy and the Ante-Nicene Fathers”
Chapter Five—“Worship in the Second and Third Centuries”
Chapter Six—“Constantine and the Consolidation of Christianity”
Chapter Seven—“Fourth and Fifth Century Christological Controversies”
Chapter Eight—“Theologians of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries”
Chapter Nine—“Consolidation and Worship in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Centuries”
Chapter Ten—“The Development of Western Church in the Early Medieval Period”
Chapter Eleven—“Christianity in the East”
Chapter Twelve—“The Western Church in the High Middle”
Chapter Thirteen—“Monasticism, Scholasticism, and the Final Conquest of Europe”
Chapter Fourteen—“Papal Decline and the Renaissance”
Chapter Fifteen—“Worship in the Middle Ages”
Chapter Sixteen—“The Dawn of the Reformation”
Chapter Seventeen—“Zwingli and the Radical Reformers”
Chapter Eighteen—“John Calvin”
Chapter Nineteen—“The English Reformation, Puritanism, and Separatism”
Chapter Twenty—“Catholic Reaction and Response to the Protestant Reformation”
Chapter Twenty-One—“Christianizing the New World”
Chapter Twenty-Two—“Unforeseen Opposition”
Chapter Twenty-Three—“Eighteenth-Century America”
Chapter Twenty-Four—“Nineteenth-Century Protestantism in England”
Chapter Twenty-Five—“The Second Great Awakening in America and its After-Effects”
Chapter Twenty-Six—“Old World Denominations in the New World”
Chapter Twenty-Seven—“Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the Modern Era”
Chapter Twenty-Eight—“Modern Protestantism”
Chapter Twenty-Nine—“The New Christian World–Globalization in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries”