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The Lost History of Christianity
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The Lost History of Christianity (2008) (edit title/settings)

The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died

by Philip Jenkins (Author) (edit contributors)

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In this groundbreaking book, renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins offers a lost history, revealing that, for centuries, Christianity's center was actually in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with significant communities extending as far as China. The Lost History of Christianity ... read more

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  • “Christianity does not come with a warranty”
  • “Perhaps theological attempts to explain the destruction of churches or of "Christian nations" are asking the wrong question, if they judge success and failure by the standards of the secular world. When, for instance, a Christian community loses political or cultural hegemony, historians might conventionally think of it as having failed, as if the faith must of necessity be allied to political power, and even military victory. Although such a linkage to worldly success was commonplace in earlier times, it has fewer adherents today. Instead of seeking explanations for the loss of divine favor, Christians should rather stress the deep suspicion about the secular order that runs through the New Testament, where the faithful are repeatedly warned that they will live in a hostile world, and a transient one.”
    Philip Jenkins
  • “To paraphrase Solomon <of Basra>, the Bible is a complex text that makes rich use of metaphor and other literary devices, so that we hear of the gates of hell, the fires of hell, or of souls being weighed in the balance. But only an idiot understands these images in the sense of real, literal gates, scales, or fires instead of thinking spiritually how sins shaped one's destiny.”
    Philip Jenkins
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • The key difference making for survival is rather how deep a church planted its roots in a particular community, and how far the religion became part of the air that ordinary people breathed.
    Highlighted by 59 Kindle customers
  • Only by understanding the lost Eastern Christianities can we understand where Islam comes from, and how very close it is to Christianity.
    Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers
  • Our accepted chronology of the ancient church is wrong: ancient Semitic Christianity dies out not in the fourth century, but in the fourteenth.8
    Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers
  • While religions might sicken and fade, they do not die of their own accord: they must be killed.
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  • The success of a particular religion or faith tradition in gaining numbers and influence neither proves nor disproves its validity.
    Highlighted by 46 Kindle customers
  • The Christian impact on Islam was profound, and can be traced at the deepest roots of that faith. Mosques look as they do because their appearance derives from that of Eastern Christian churches in the early days of Islam. Likewise, most of the religious practices of the believers within those mosques stem from the example of Eastern Christians, including the prostrations that appear so alien to modern Westerners. The severe self-denial of Ramadan was originally based on the Eastern practice of Lent.
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  • Dechristianization is one of the least studied aspects of Christian history.27
    Highlighted by 37 Kindle customers
  • Far from being a daring innovation, the globalized character of modern Christianity is better seen as a resumption of an ancient reality.
    Highlighted by 33 Kindle customers
  • The disasters of the late Middle Ages tore Christianity from its roots—cultural, geographical, and linguistic. This “uprooting” created the Christianity that we commonly think of today as the true historical norm, but which in reality was the product of the elimination of alternative realities. Christianity did indeed become “European,” but about a millennium later than most people think.
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  • The world’s first Christian kingdom was Osrhoene, beyond the eastern borders of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Edessa: its king accepted Christianity around 200.15 That regime did not last long, but neighboring Armenia made this the official religion around the year 300 and retains the faith until the present day.
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First Sentence edit see section history

Throughout this book, I refer to the Eastern Christian churches that are commonly known as Jacobite and Nestorian.

Table of Contents edit see section history

List of Illustrations vii
A Note on Names and -isms ix
1. The End of Global Christianity 1
2. Churches of the East 45
3. Another World 71
4. The Great Tribulation 97
5. The Last Christians 139
6. Ghosts of a Faith 173
7. How Faiths Die 207
8. The Mystery of Survival 227
9. Endings and Beginnings 247
Notes 263
Acknowledgements 299
Index 301

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Philip Jenkins (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Harperone
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 0061472808
Page Count: 336

Classification edit see section history

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