Book Reviews
The People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story
A church historian seeks out the stories of committed Christians who, over the centuries, have lived their faith and helped keep their church alive.
By Jane Lampman | April 29, 2009 edition
For those committed to Christianity as a way of life, these can be disconcerting times. Membership is declining in many churches, there are deep divisions over biblical interpretation, and disenchanted young people seem to be either staying away or seeking new forms of worship.
Others worry that there’s a politicizing of the faith. It sometimes seems that Christianity – along with all religion – is being charged with many of the evils of human history. Some people even ask, “How can you still be a Christian?”
It was that question – posed to her by a friend – that prompted church historian Diana Butler Bass to write her latest book, The People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story.
In a refreshing look at 2,000 years of Christian history from the bottom up, Butler Bass offers unique insights into the spirit has stirred the hearts and minds of faithful people over the centuries and brought renewal to Christianity during periods of upheaval and distress.
When Christian history is written, it is usually “Big-C Christianity,” as Butler Bass calls it, a tale of Western Christianity’s triumphal spread – institutional struggles against other religions and political systems, and, all too often, the use of militant means to achieve perceived righteous ends.
Here, instead, the author has sought out the stories of individuals in various eras who’ve struggled to live on the basis of Jesus’ teachings, by loving God and loving their neighbor. This she calls “generative Christianity,” a faith that transforms the world through humble service: “It is not about victory; it is about following Christ in order to seed human community with grace.”
This exploration is crucial today, Butler Bass believes, because so many contemporary Christians suffer not only from biblical illiteracy, but also “spiritual amnesia.” While Jesus’ teachings may speak to them personally, they are “unmoored” from a positive sense of Christian history after Jesus. Witness the intense recent interest in books about the years of the early church, and the search for an “authentic” faith by exploring ancient spiritual practices.
If Christianity is to be renewed and go on to flourish in the future, the author contends, Christians must gain a sense of their history that is meaningful and inspires hope.
A mainline Protestant who has taught Christian history and authored several books, Butler Bass understands the implications of the 20th-century split between those who hold to an inerrant Bible and those who accept the complexities of historical scholarship, between an evangelicalism that has prized personal piety and a mainline church that pursued social justice.
To follow Jesus’ “Great Command” – to love God and love one’s neighbor – she says, calls for both personal and social commitment.
“A People’s History” seeks to help Western Christianity become whole again. Presenting Christian history as five periods – The Way (100-500), the Cathedral (500-1450), the Word (1450-1650), the Quest (1650-1945), and the River (1945-present) – the book describes how individuals in each period have defined their love of God through forms of devotion and their love of neighbor through ethical action.
In the early church, for example, around 270, a wealthy young Christian named Anthony was so struck by Jesus’ words to the young rich man in Matt. 19:21 (sell all your possessions, give to the poor and come, follow me) that he disposed of all he owned and went into the Egyptian desert to become close to God.
Anthony, who lived for more than 100 years before being martyred, is considered the founder of desert monastic communities.
The early-church stories also speak of Christians who tended the sick during a devastating plague in Rome when others fled, “because they did not fear death,” and who exhibited a profound sense of hospitality in welcoming the stranger and sharing their goods with others.
In medieval Christianity, cathedrals became the “spiritual architecture” for the largely illiterate faithful. Yet, after barbarians sacked Rome, and Europe fell into disarray, the author writes, Christianity survived thanks to two men in particular, Benedict of Nursia and Pope Gregory the Great. Benedict wrote a handbook that defined community around humility, and Gregory renewed the church on Benedict’s principles, making the parish the center of community life.
“Arguably, Christianity would not have survived the fall of Rome without their innovative restructuring of church,” Butler Bass suggests.
When the printing press later made the Bible available to ordinary folks, the power of the Word sparked Luther’s Reformation and spawned new forms of preaching, singing, worshiping, and teaching. In local churches, people began to testify to God’s power in their own lives. Women like Katharina Schutz and Katharina Zell in Germany, courageously wrote pamphlets and preached under often-dangerous circumstances.
“The pamphleteers … were the bloggers of the 16th century … whose words shaped religious rebellion by challenging traditional authorities,” Butler Bass writes. “For Katharina, not to speak truth was to support error.”
Within each period, ordinary believers who imbibed Jesus’ teachings felt compelled to live them out in daily life, shaping new forms of worship and new movements that fitted their historical context. In modern times, for instance, Christians such as John Newton and Maria Stewart saw the import of eliminating slavery and addressing other ills such as poverty.
“A People’s History” pays tribute to Christianity’s dynamic nature, the ways in which, in the darkest hours, a new spark always seemed to light a flame of renewal. It depicts how Christians have sought insight and understanding to guide them in a dramatically changing world.
In that sense, this highly accessible history will encourage contemporary Christians to recognize that today’s challenges may be new but the struggle is the same, and is bound up in love.
This survey does skimp on any mention of healing, a central aspect of Jesus’ life and expectation of his followers, and ignores the healings by early and later church workers.
Butler Bass acknowledges that her examples are merely suggestive, not comprehensive.
“This history is less a magisterial narrative and more like a collection of campfire tales,” she says. Yet campfire tales can capture the imagination, and these stories should nourish those who are striving to live out their faith and to light a 21st-century flame that burns brightly.
“We are simultaneously like our ancestors and completely different from them,” the author says. “Thus Christianity becomes a story of accumulated human experience of God that reveals a certain kind of wisdom in the world: To love God and love one’s neighbor constitutes the good life.”
Jane Lampman is the Monitor’s religion reporter.
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Comments
2. Jon D. Wilke | 04.30.09
Jane, there are many issues facing the church today. I believe none more critical than biblical illiteracy.
Consider the following statistics:
• 65% of Bible-believing Christians have never read the entire New Testament.
• 43% of American adults function at or below basic literacy levels – making them incapable of meaningful Bible reading.
• 58% of the U.S. adult population will never read another book after high school.
We must get people engaged in the Bible again–in a way, in a place and in a format that communicates those time-honored truths of the Bible.
3. dale | 04.30.09
the problem with modern christianity is that it is used as a means (by those who espouse their christianity) to measure others against.
4. Katharina Sri (former: Noor Aza Othman) | 04.30.09
This book sounds fantastic, by Ms. Bass. I remember watching the movie, the Final Inquiry by an Italian director, about how the Roman Empire would have adopted Christianity much earlier if not for the betrayal of a murderous Emperor. But what struck me most about the story in the movie was that the key to Christianity (how I interpret it) was how Christ was sent to liberate the poor and oppressed, from all kinds of human-made cruelty and irrationality. The over-abundance and “gold-plated” wealth of the Vatican has distracted and disappointed many from that key-point, especially amidst the increasingly socio-politically conscious younger generation. Anyway, watching that history in the movie, was amongst the significantly defining turning moments that really left such a profound impact upon my being, that finally led me to stop being angry with God and blaming God for every injustice, and to read the bible, especially the NT, rationally, and ultimately led to my complete faith in Christ!
5. Mary Aljian Hamparian | 04.30.09
Sadly, I recognize a great omission in Ms. Bass’ compilation in her book.
It is the fact that the Armenians, as a nation accepted Christianity several years before the Romans. Keeping their faith, true to their Christianity as an enlightened society through all the years, (until the vile Genocide of innocents by the Ottoman Turks 1896-1923). Smaller massacres earlier than 1915 were for the Turks to practice their skills, for a nation to be eliminated did take much planning.
Subsequent Turkish leaders over the years, until today, have lied to
deny the Genocide of the Armenians. First killing the men, and then
these “brave” Turks marched the women, children, infants born and unborn into the desert, lacking food, water, clothing….. terrorizing, marching until they died…. And the world still allows, with the United States of America, sadly, leading the way, this terrible example of genocide denial in the 21st century. Politics/politicians aside, for any and all reasons, the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a political issue…. it is first and foremost a moral issue. Morally, genocide is of the mentality of despots to gain their own goals, at whatever cost, to whomever….whenever it pleases them.
It wonders me, doesn’t the world see that having ‘eluded’ (for now) the consequences of having committed the first Genocide of the 20th century, isn’t it evident that the Turks are and have been conducting a Genocide against another group of its citizens, the Kurds. Together with Bush, calling the Kurds ‘terrorists’ they are thus unhampered in this Genocide - their second Genocide, begining in the 20th century and continuing, unrecognized today, now into the 21st century.
Shall our colonists, in their efforts breaking away from English tyranny,
been labelled ‘terrorists’ but rather, weren’t they ‘freedom fighters’?
Sadly… now the Genocide of the Darfurians. My pains for the Darfurians are deep into my heart, knowing what the Armenians, my grandparents whom I never knew, endured. What does it take for the cycle of genocides to be ended? We conquered the sciences, we reached beyond into outer space… We shall certainly be able to eliminate Genocide here, on God’s earth. I do believe,
a swell from our religious and moral citizens, the world over, to say: ENOUGH, RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIANS HAD A GENOCIDE,THE DAFURIANS AND KURDS ARE SUFFERING GENOCIDES TODAY - WHICH SHALL BE STOPPED.
WHO WILL, WHO CAN, STEP UP AND LEAD US TO ELIMINATE GENOCIDES TODAY
Manooshag
6. Mohan kumar | 04.30.09
Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be
forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?-Luke 5:17
Jesus thinking & what the world think entirely contradictory to each other. For example in above verse he asks the Pharisees,which is easier. we generaly think physical healing is grater, but according to Jesus it is very easy thing but difficult is sins to be forgiven.
Jesus preaching in
Luke 6:20 - Blessed are poor - where as we think rich people are blessed
- woe to you rich people - this what Jesus think
what still Christians are thinking is similar to what Jews were thinking on Jesus time. We need to change our heart not just keeping christian names.
This type of Christianity still exists in places like India
7. bovey43@live.com | 05.01.09
Jane Lampman:
As my valued former editor at CSM, I am pleased to see you tackle the thorny subject of Christianity through this new publication by Butler Bass. The true facts are these: Christianity does indeed have a horrible reputation for violence (the many Christian Crusades, especially against the muslim world) to live down or have explained by church leaders. Then there is the burning of heretics and the litany of other Christian sponsored methods of eliminating those who are different or dont agree with the teachings of Christianity. That aside, there is the rise of evangelical movements around the world, but especially in the USA, where self appointed saviors of Christianity have imitated the crusaders by seeking dominance or revenge towards those who dont submit to their teachings. Then we have the spectacle of every US president invoking Gods name as though he was the chief benefactor whose every moment is spent blessing the actions of the politicians in the USA. Then you have the rise in education whereby our young people view this vast array of misleading and violent Christian history, moneygrubbing policies and blind allegiance to demonstrably false beliefs and you can see why they drop out of the churchs clutches. Finally, the church has to become a more flexible, humane and incorporating body or it will be left with more pompous leaders than humble followers or parishioners.
Tony Gillotte
Vacaville, CA
8. Randy T | 05.03.09
The truth will always prevail as is described here: as long as we base our thoughts, actions, and words on love.
9. pjmcnulty | 05.05.09
Sounds like a wonderful book. Many thanks to the author. But good to note that in our (Catholic) tradition we have had this side of the coin as part of our Christian heritage for many many centuries: we call(ed) The Lives of the Saints. In my early years (I am going on 78) many of us had a favorite person (saint) and read what was available about them. In our “religion” classes we could write about how we were growing in our own friendship with them leading us deeper into our relationship to Christ. As a Roman Catholic priest I very often try to get people to read about the saints as they work through the ordinary struggles of their own everyday life.
10. Gordon Hill | 05.05.09
The true spirit of christianity will survive despite the many christian corporations that have turned the “faith” into profit making businesses.
Some say that christianity is now only a right wing political party…that it is not longer a religion… but I say that true christianity still survives in the heart of the humble follower of Christ.
11. Johnny G | 05.05.09
Regarding the”horror of the Crusades”mentioned above. Frankly I’d like people to get their history straight! The Crusades began in 1095…..after 400 years of Muslim conquest that oppressed/ wiped out the Christian areas of the Eastern Roman Empire and North Africa. Talk about “historic amnesia!”
For those who need a wake-up-call…..what happened to the Christians back then sounds a lot like what the Taliban and other Islamic terrorists want to bring back today. As a Catholic Christian, I personally have absolutely nothing “to live down.” I wasn’t around then and I don’t belong to a religion that’s forcing itself on, say, Saudi Arabia where Christians/Jews (including our US troops there) have NONE of the freedoms that followers of Saudi Arabia’s “official religion” have here in the US, and in many other places of the “oppressive Western world.”
Finally– guess what religious group was knocking at the doors of Vienna in the 1600s? They weren’t there for the bratwurst, folks!
12. Jim McCrea | 10.09.09
Following Johnny G’s posting above, for a lot of forgotten history, read Philip Jenkins’ “The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia — and How it Died.”
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1. Adrian | 04.30.09
The fall of Rome could not have been the end of Christianity, as Constantinople continued to exist 1000 years more. Catholics and Protestants often forget (ignorance or on purpose?) the existence of Eastern Christianity…maybe less numerous, but probably some of the oldest and most spiritual churches.