Opening the topic - must read books on Christian history. (Let's exclude modern biography.) I am going to recommend THE FIRST 1000 YEARS by Robert Lewis Wilken. Many Western Christians have (in my experience) very little understanding of the rise and development of Christian history. This book fills in all those blanks. Allow me to quote the review; Wilken "sheds new light on the subsequent stories of Christianity in the Latin West, the Byzantine and Slavic East, the Middle East, and Central Asia." Trust me, it's not boring! "This is not a story limited to the West; rather, Christian communities in Ethiopia, Nubia, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, Central Asia, India, and China shaped the course of Christian history." Yes, the history of Christianity is deep and broad, and it is so helpful for us to understand the Church beyond our personal bubbles. "This is a rich and wonderful book, not only because of Robert Wilken's narrative gifts, but because of his immense scholarly range and sympathies. His is one of the few treatments of Christianity's first millennium for Anglophone readers that embraces the faith's whole history, cultural and geographical, Eastern and Western, Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian, European, Asian, and African. It is a pure joy to read."—David Hart, author of Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies My personal copy contains many, many marginal notes.
I am going to recommend
THE FIRST 1000 YEARS by Robert Lewis Wilken.
Many Western Christians have (in my experience) very little understanding of the rise and development of Christian history. This book fills in all those blanks. Allow me to quote the review; Wilken "sheds new light on the subsequent stories of Christianity in the Latin West, the Byzantine and Slavic East, the Middle East, and Central Asia." Trust me, it's not boring! "This is not a story limited to the West; rather, Christian communities in Ethiopia, Nubia, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, Central Asia, India, and China shaped the course of Christian history." Yes, the history of Christianity is deep and broad, and it is so helpful for us to understand the Church beyond our personal bubbles.
"This is a rich and wonderful book, not only because of Robert Wilken's narrative gifts, but because of his immense scholarly range and sympathies. His is one of the few treatments of Christianity's first millennium for Anglophone readers that embraces the faith's whole history, cultural and geographical, Eastern and Western, Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian, European, Asian, and African. It is a pure joy to read."—David Hart, author of Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
My personal copy contains many, many marginal notes.