THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27404, 17 July 1954, Page 3

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

DR. LATOURETTE’S TREATISE [Reviewed by L.G.W.} A History of Christianity. By Kenneth Scott Latourette. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1516 pp. Dr. Latourette is world famous for his' colossal work in seven volumes, called “A History of the Expansion of Christianity.” In the preface to the book under review he explains that it is an ‘‘endeavour to be a wellrounded summary of the entire history of Christianity in all its phases, and in its setting in the human scene.’-* The story of expansion has a place, and is at times prominent, but it is only one aspect of a larger whole. The fundamental idea of this history is that though Christianity has become the most widespread of all religious faiths, it has not at any time been dominant. But this is not the post-Christian age. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. to which some look back as the hey-day of Christianity in Europe were outside the major centres of the world's wealth, population and civilisation. From the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, Christianity “was having the greatest geographical extension which it had thus far enjoyed.” The assumption that Christianity has been waning since the Renaissance, and especially since the eighteenth century, is not correct. The author in his modest preface lays no claim to have written an entirely objective history without presuppositions. He has consulted all the relevant authorities and stated the facts as he sees them. But ‘limitations in the records and in the historian are inescapable.” The first three chapters try to place Christianity in its setting in the stream of history, and give outlines of Juda»ism and Graecp-Roman culture. The (Story of Jesus, His Gospel and the foundation of Christianity is then told from the standpoint of a Liberal Protestant. The course of Christianity is then treated “by what the author deems to have been its major epochs.” The first, covering 500 years, includes the winning of the Roman Empire and Christianity’s taking shape; from A.D. ’5OO to 950 came the Great Recession, iwhen so much Christian territory was {lost to Islam. This was the greatest set-back Christianity has yet received. ‘From 950-1350 were centuries of re- ' surgence and advance. From 1350-1500

; we have geographic loss, internal lassitude, confusion and corruption, partly offset by vigorous life. From 1500-1750 there was a period of expansion and reform; from 1750-1850 one of repudia'uon and revival. 1815-1914 was “the Great Century,” with growing repudiation paralleled by astounding vitality and unprecedented expansion. Our a ge, beginning in 1914, is called vigour Amidst Storm.” There are annotated bibliographies to most of the chapters and also 20 maps. . The book concludes with a retrospect m which the author asks such questions as: “ What is the end of the story? ; • • Is it only beginning? Is history to go on until all human society, within Jtstory? and all individuals within if jmiy conform to God's ideal for men? Gr is God to bring history suddenly 22 an end perhaps at an early date?” tne historian as such does not attempt answer questions of this kind. are Christians agreed to the answers to them. There is no precedent to enable us to come to a definite conclusion. “Yet they who have learned of Jesus reach out in faith. * • . They are convinced that the full course of the Gospel is not and cannot Pe contained within history, that God nas made Christ Lord not only in this iK 6 ; b u t in that which is to come, and Jfiat it is the purpose of God through jurist to reconcile all things unto Himeawuwhetiler the things are upon the or are things in the heavens.” rtJzpc is lost in admiration at the wonsweep of the author’s generalispons and the mastery of detail that he f We even have a reference pl Wakefield and the founding of ln his unassuming way tn JJcclaros. in the preface, that ‘‘he that his survey mav enable some of c 9 me him to tell the story with more accuracy and ahr? J reater insight than he has been v to command.” However this may . • have in his work a classical in the history of Christianity, i