In the original dustsheet. Binding the same as the dustsheet.

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In The Story of Christianity, acclaimed theologian David Bentley Hart provides a sweeping and informative portrait of a faith that has shaped the western world and beyond for over 2,000 years. From the persecutions of the early church to the papal-imperial conflicts of the Middle Ages, from the religious wars of 16th- and 17th-century Europe to the challenges of science and secularism in the modern era, and from the ancient Christian communities of Africa and Asia to the ‘house churches’ of contemporary China, The Story of Christianity triumphantly captures the complexity and diversity of Christian history.

Review: Despite the first couple of chapters, this turned out to be an engrossing book. At the current price this is excellent value for anyone interested in religious and historical subjects. Apart from the opening chapters on the Bible, this is an excellent analysis of the Christian faith up to the present time; a noble attempt given the book’s 270-or-so pages. The book’s strength is that it includes the story of the less well-known (at least here in the “West”) aspects and growth of the Orthodox and Syrian Churches – which often had very different theologies to those of the West. One of the early church “Fathers” was Origen and although respected by the Catholic Church, he was never made a “saint”. This was because some of his works were heretical, he “believed that human souls existed before their lives in the body, and had turned away from God in eternity, and that God had created the world as a moral academy by which to restore them to innocence.” As virtually every church since then has rejected this analysis (which is true) we can then see why it has taken 2,000 years of stupidity to reach the truth. And we are very far away from attaining it; which is why we currently have idiots like Pope Francis. Justim Welby, Rowan Williams and Rick Warren and Benny Hinn (and too many others to mention) proposing all matter of theological stupidity – and people buying into it by the bucket-load (and making many of them richer than they should be). Towards the end of the book the writer refers to Freud and states that his work on the unconscious (that which you are not truly aware) revealed that the human psyche has “hidden, largely irrational impulses, repressed desires, secret resentments, tacit memories and conflicting sexual urges.” That is exactly what the Hebrew Bible stated (nearly 2,500 years ago) and the New Testament elaborated on (for a “Greek” audience). Unfortunately, because the Catholic Church (and subsequent Protestant Churches) rejected Origen’s flawless analysis (and made a saint out of the idiot St.Augustine), we have had 2,000 of complete stupidity where no-one could agree on anything – not even if Henry VIII had been “married” to Catherine of Aragon or not!

The Author: An Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Duke Divinity School, and Loyola College in Baltimore. His specialties are philosophical theology and patristics. He completed his divinity school training at the University of Cambridge, and his graduate training at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? and The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth.