Church History In Plain Language Updated 2nd Edition by Bruce L. Shelley
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Book Reviews of Church History In Plain Language Updated 2nd Edition
Book Review: For nearly 500 pages it reads quickly
Summary: 4 Stars
I like history in small doses. I believe its an important subject but its difficult to package historical events. If one keeps listing facts, a book can get bogged down in boring detail. If one just looks at individual people's stories, I have to ask if your representing the necessary stories that show how events happened. Are you forgetting too much?
Shelley does a nice job of giving us surveys in this book which covers 2000 years. Like a bird in flight, we see Christian church history from way over head. Then, at times, Shelley swoops down to take a closer look at the grass and soil before soaring up the next historical event. To make the book very readable, this technique does work.
Shelley does a nice job of covering certain people very well. He also does a nice job of explaining how intellectual thought is developed in different periods of time. However, certain events do get left out like the Salem witch trials and some events don't get as much attention as you might want. I wanted to know more of how French intellectuals responded to Blaise Pascal. Still, this is a good solid history book.
Its funny after reading it. I was left with a strange sense of hope and disappointment. The church has certainly had its share of messing up and hurting itself. (I am wise enough to know you don't measure worldviews by their abuses. Every worldview has their deep chest of skeletons.) It was saddening to see how much damage the church has done. But, out of every generation, from some unexpected place, the church would be altered by some amazing soul who could bring something promising back to a life of faith.
This book can't be everything to everyone, also, it lacks much history on the Orthodox Church, but I do think its a fair representation of the chuch history it covers.
Book Review: Church History in Plain Language
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellant! Both in content and editorial applications. Here is an example of a fine book to purchase from Kindle. I have the printed copy and this Kindle copy is an exact reproduction. Bruce knows his subject well, and truly does explain Church in simple, yet understandable terms. Thanks for a job well done.
Thomas H. Snyder
Book Review: Easily Accessible History
Summary: 4 Stars
To anyone interested in Church history, this book is a very quick, easy to understand read. It's also a great primer or refresher on Western Civilization as the Church and the West are traced together by the author through the history.
For non-Christians reading this book, I'm afraid it was a bit lacking for internal citations, but did reference other more scholarly texts at the end of each chapter. The author did a good job of treating each controversy within the church as it arose in an even-mannered way, but in general the book seems to be written from a present-day Evangelical Christian perspective looking back.
Book Review: Great introduction
Summary: 4 Stars
Excellent introductory source to the world of Christian history. Shelley writes in a historically accurate, approachable way without becoming too bogged down in the more minute details of Church History. Definitely not exhaustive in scope, but it is written in order to show the reader the importance of the history of the church regarding spirituality, culture, and world history in general. Great flow from chapter to chapter, and an easy read for the beginning student.Book Review: Usefully brief
Summary: 5 Stars
Among the first things that should be noted in writing about Church History is Shelley's purpose in this work. Shelley states clearly that this book is an "introduction" to church history and is designed for the everyday Christian; layman and congregant alike. If we were to evaluate this book with the same rubric as collegiate books on the topic, we'd find this book severely lacking. But if we grade this book according to its own claims, we'll find a rich source of encouragement to further understand the earlier branches of our faith.
In the interest of readability, no references are found anywhere throughout the text, however recommendations for more scholarly reading can be found at the end of each chapter. For me, this helped keep the reading liquid. It helped me to engage the history as a story that I was interested in hearing and on some level felt a part of, as opposed to something dry and sterile.
I began reading Church History before I had become more confident and consistent with my extra-biblical reading, so coming at about 550 pages this endeavor was an ambitious one for me. However, besides being a novice at reading anything this scale, the writing made it easy to glide through while still understanding the text.
In Church History Shelley takes us though 2000 years of church operation, starting right after the ascension of Christ all the way through to 1996. Church history can become a sticky subject, with heresy after heresy, then division after division. Things can quickly become confusion. Any writer planning to take on 2000 years ecclesial webs is either going to have a very, very long book when their done, or is going to need excellent organizational skills to scale so vast a wall. In this instance, Shelley just so happens to be a well organized writer. In the text, after the first four centuries of history things began to get a little bit confusing. Simple the sheer madness of political and religious shifts could send anyone's head spinning. But Shelley does a better job than many at keeping things straight.
The practical organization of the text is such that it helps a reader forget the size the literature he's taking in. The book is broken down into "ages" (i.e., The Age of Jesus and the Apostles, The Age of Ideologies, etc.), each one coming in at around 50 - 75 pages. Each age is broken into much smaller, more digestible chapters of around 8 pages. In the interest of clarity, not all chapters are strung together in perfect chronological order.
Throughout history, there have been many disagreements in the church. The most notable probably being during the time of the reformation. In that context, it is easy for folks to fall to one side of theological lines or the other. In this instance, most of Shelley's words read unbiased, simply retelling the history, with little of his own commentary.
Here's the skinny on this book: you're not going to finish this book and be a church history genius (well, maybe you will, I don't know). But what likely will happen is when you put this book down you will most likely have a more cohesive snapshot of church's history. It will probably help you to understand how we got from the time of the Apostles and the church in Acts, to today. For me, it helped to challenge my ideals as far as church organization and methods are concerned. Seeing, quickly, how things were spread out helped me not to see myself as being the first to try and figure this stuff out, but in a way, knit me together with the people who have gone before me.
This book was encouraging, and enriching. I recommend it to anyone desiring to enrich their faith and more specifically, anyone interested in the subject.