Christianity through the eye of TV

Press, 19 November 1977, Page 17

Christianity through the eye of TV

The Christians. By Bamber Gascoigne. Jonathan Cape. 304 pp. $18.95, (Reviewed by Colin Brown) Television has generated a new variety of highly literate and articulate tourist guide who ranges rapidly and widely over his chosen subject to the accompaniment of often quite superb television pictures. As a spin-off from slch ventures sumptuously illustrated books have appeared and by now we have Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation,” Alistair Cooke’s “America,” and Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man.” Bamber Gascoigne’s “The Christians” is in this tradition and has been published in connection with progammes made by Granada Television in Britain. As Bamber Gascoigne recognises in his preface, television and the production of profusely illustrated books impose their own, peculiar demands. As far as this book is concerned the main consequence is that "It is about people, events and places, rather than theory or theology.” It is, indeed, difficult to know what a television crew would do if a commentator insisted on

discussing the early controversies over the doctrine of the Trinity in anything like adequate detail. Theological controversies and intellectual issues are not omitted from Gascoigne’s survey, but they are certainly not the focus of interest and are not given detailed discussion. Occasionally this relative neglect leads to . questionable claims. Thus to say that the “first Christians believed Jesus was God” is to summarise the upshot of the New Testament on this point in a misleading manner. This book treats its subject chronologically although with some overlapping between chapters. Western Christianity shares honours with Eastern Orthodoxy; the tangled and tragic tale of Christianity’s dealings with Islam has an important place as has the impact of Roman Catholicism on Latin America and its fate there. In so broad a sweep there are, perhaps inevitably, points at which the author rushes in where historians fear to tread. For instance: it is by no means certain that St Paul studied at Jerusalem “under a distinguished rabbi”; Francis of Assisi probably did

not take his clothes off “in the street,” and more important Augustine of Hippo did not write “The City of God” in “response to one very specific event — the sack of Rome in 410.” To suppose so is, according to a recent biographer of Augustine, “particularly superficial.” There are enough slips of this kind to be surprising in a book which, in other places, deftly qualifies some claims in a way which indicates awareness of the state of contemporary scholarship. The illustrations, more than 200 of them and many in colour, are of high interest and quality, a splendid complement to a text which, on the whole, does them justice. They are chosen from photographs taken by Christina Gascoigne who has cooperated with her husband on three earlier books, all profusely illustrated. Certainly in this book her skill as a photographer is evident and, on occasion,’ two photographs are juxtaposed in eloquent contrast. There are other one-volume histories of Christianity, but few with so lively a text and none with so superb a collection of illustrations to match.