This text is the companion volume to patristic scholar Everett Ferguson's Church History, following volume 1, From Christ to Pre-Reformation, published in 2005. In this second volume, John D. Woodbridge and Frank A. James III have composed a masterful work of church history. A prominent theme that runs through the book is explicitly stated in the preface: “God works through sinners to accomplish his good purposes” (29; emphasis in the original). In other words, despite the faults of Christians, the church accomplishes its necessary mission of communicating the good news of Jesus Christ. This volume excels in succinct explanations of political events that are taking place concurrently, and often in relationship, with church history and theological development. Composed of twenty-two chapters, the volume could be divided into eight broad sections: (1) the historical context leading up to the Reformation period, (2) the Reformation period of the sixteenth century, (3) seventeenth-century European religious movements, (4) the Enlightenment, (5) the age of revolutions and struggles for independence, (6) nineteenth-century European church movements, (7) ecclesial and theological movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and (8) challenges for the future.
After setting the stage for the Reformation by presenting the Great Schism, the conciliarist movement, and the Renaissance, the authors depict the thought and history of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Henry VIII, Christian radicalism, and the Catholic Reformation. Within its coverage of seventeenth-century religious movements is a poignant exploration of authority from the standpoint of Scripture, tradition, royalty, social classes, free cities, kingdoms, princedoms, city-states, papal states, federated republics, science, philosophy, and patriarchy. This should provide probing questions for discussion regarding what authorities are important for Christians today.
The chapters that scrutinize the Enlightenment include a well-written section pitting the rationalistic deism of Voltaire against the romanticism of Rousseau. The discussion of nineteenth-century religious movements offers an absorbing conversation on secularization and modernism by focusing on the theological struggle with Darwin and evolutionary thought. Woodbridge and James also supplement developments in the Russian Orthodox Church with powerful descriptions of the lives and writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy.
With respect to the ecclesial and theological movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Woodbridge and James not only examine Christianity within African, Asian, and Latin American contexts, but also document the rise of Pentecostalism with great precision and nuance. With the authors’ reminder that Pentecostalism has been increasing in membership at a rate of nineteen million members a year, this section takes up a lacuna that is inadequately addressed in most other texts. The book, recently published, also contains a section on Pope Francis and the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. It also dedicates a chapter to American Evangelicalism, beginning with fundamentalism, infallibility, and the Princeton Theological Seminary, continuing with important neo-Evangelicals like Harold Ockenga, Carl F. H. Henry, and Billy Graham, and concluding with the thought of various postmodern evangelical movements.
The final chapter proposes that one of the great challenges for the remainder of the twenty-first century will be the relationship between Christianity and Islam. With the authors’ view that “violence has been a constitutive part of the Islamic tradition ever since the death of the prophet Muhammad,” they hope for the Christianization of Islam such as was seen with the Christianization of the Roman Empire (838).
Church History's easy delineation of historical events supports comprehension not only by undergraduate students, but also by laypersons interested in church history. For example, the description of German unification during the nineteenth century supplies concise explanations of political events with its description of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's anti-Catholic Kulturkampf. Although the text could also be utilized in graduate and seminary settings, supplemental readings would be required to further explore theological nuance. The purchase of the text also includes a number of online teaching aids for professor and student. For the professor, these include an instruction guide with summaries, PowerPoint slides, quizzes for every chapter, a sample syllabus, a midterm, and a final exam. The quizzes and tests all utilize true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and multiple-choice questions. For students, sample quizzes, study guides, and flash cards are available.
Although the book would be suitable in any denominational context, it does give preference to Evangelical concerns and histories. As it is a Zondervan publication with a picture of Billy Graham on the cover, this is not surprising. Additionally, Catholic institutions may find it strange that while Luther rightly gets his own chapter, the Catholic Reformation shares a chapter with sixteenth-century Christian radicals. As with most similar texts, there is also a clear European focus until the twentieth century. Although Woodbridge and James show great respect for the many Christian traditions of the last eight hundred years, there are a couple of passages that may offend Muslims. One was quoted earlier in reference to the final chapter, while the other is a reference to a “papal fatwa” by Pope Pius V to assassinate Queen Elizabeth (239). As is typical for an undergraduate text, there are no footnotes, but there is a general bibliography, texts recommended for further reading at the end of each chapter, and a very detailed index.
