A People’s History of Christianity- The Other Side of the Story
A History of the Grassroots Movements in Christianity that Preserved Jesus’s Message of Social Justice for 2,000 Years and Their Impact on the Church Today
In the same spirit as Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking work The People’s History of the United States, Diana Butler Bass reveals the under-reported movements, personalities, and spiritual practices that continue to inform and ignite contemporary Christian worship, activism, and social justice reforms in the name of Jesus. The book will offer up a much-needed “other side of the story” for progressive Christians, drawing from examples of alternative practices in every period of Christian history, including:
* Care for the environment and celebrating God in nature
* Defining compassion, hospitality, and social justice as the primary function of the church
* Pacifism as the dominant Christian response to war
* Highlighting the female attributes of God
* Celebrating human sexuality as a gift from God
This is the book that progressives and liberals have been waiting for – a deeply researched history of Christianity that sheds new light on the underreported personalities and movements of the faith.
Diana Butler Bass is the author of seven books on American Protestantism, including Christianity for the Rest of Us, Strength for the Journey, and The Practicing Congregation. She earned her Ph.D. in Church History from Duke University and has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Rhodes College, and Virginia Theological Seminary. From 1995 – 2000 she wrote a weekly column on American Religion for the New York Times syndicate and is a popular speaker at retreats and workshops across the country. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
A People’s History of Christianity is a selection of the Progressive Book Club.
“Butler-Bass has created a perfect armchair companion for contemporary Christians. Charmingly written and refreshing to read, yet rich in details and thorough in its mapping of the major themes and events that have shaped the evolution of the Western Church, A People’s History is our story re-told with both clear-eyed affection and a scholar’s acumen.”
Phyllis Tickle, Author, The Great Emergence
“It would be difficult to imagine anyone reading A PEOPLE’S HISTORY without finding some new insight or inspiration, some new and unexpected testimony to the astonishing breadth of Christianity through the centuries.”
Philip Jenkins, author of The Lost History of Christianity
“What an exciting book… Highly recommended”
Library Journal (February 15, 2009).
AVAILABLE MARCH 2009
Religion
$25.95 ($27.95 Can.)
Hardcover
336 pages; 6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-06-144870-6
Diana Butler Bass sets out, in this well written book, to provide more positive answers to the question, "What happened to Christianity after Jesus?" "Big – C" Christianity is Bass' term for what she believes has been the most common version of the Christian story. It contains Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin and Christian America. The tale runs like this:"Jesus came to save us, but he founded the church instead. That church suffered under Roman persecution until the emperor Constantine made Christianity legal. With its new status, the Christian religion spread through Europe, where popes and kings formed a society they called Christendom, which was run by the Catholic Church and was constantly threatened by Muslims, witches, and heretics. There were wars and inquisitions. When people had had enough, they rebelled and became Protestants, their man leader being John Calvin, who was a great theologian, but a killjoy. Eventually Calvin's heirs, the Puritans, left Europe to set up a Christian society in the New World. The United States of America then became the most important Christian nation in the world, a beacon of faith and democracy."According to Bass, this Big – C Christianity is militant, both in its liberal and conservative form. It is this Christian faith that has been both defended and attacked by believers and opponents. It has largely been "The" Christian Faith" that has shaped and been shaped by the American culture and to a lesser extent, the Western World.Bass states that this Big – C picture of the faith contains serious flaws. These flaws, she explains come largely from the loss of many of the stories that had been part of the early Christian tradition. Along with this loss was the faulty reconstruction of the remaining narrative. We therefore inhabit a world of "broken memories–in which some tell history badly, others do not know it at all, and others use history to manipulate society to their own ends." She wants to present a more truthful and more complete picture of the Christian faith. But Bass says her book is not about lost memory, but rather about "memory found and the ways in which Christian history tethers contemporary faith to ancient wisdom." Whereas many searching and spiritually hungry people have examined Christianity and concluded it failed to offer them the spiritual nourishment they sought, Bass says that she and others have resurrected the many long buried elements of "generative Christianity" that "births new possibilities of God's love into the world. Whereas militant Christianity triumphs over all, generative Christianity transforms the world through humble service to all. It is not about victory; it is about following Christ in order to seed human community with grace."She goes on to call her book a "scrapbook of traditions that may have been forgotten, mislaid, or misinterpreted, rearranged on a page to evoke memories of the Christian God. It is an attempt to find the history of the prophetic Jesus in the church, the Jesus who spoke for the poor and oppressed, who broke bread with sinners, who wanted his followers to know life fully"…Her "scrapbook" contains many interesting and inspiring stories from earliest period of Christian history to the present. They are presented in an organized manner which is very helpful for the reader who is seeking an over-all sequence and direction of the Christian narrative. It will be valuable for study groups, made up of those who seek a new way to talk about their progressive faith and will inspire more than a few sermons. I expect this will be a book that will be found to be both helpful and quite inspiring to the majority of its readers. It will become apparent to some, that Diana Butler Bass has little or no interest in some of the areas that are currently in focus for some Christian scholars and interested lay persons.She accepts the picture of Jesus that she finds meaningful and that serves well as the representative of God's loving nature here on earth. The questions, disputes and conflicts over the accuracy of this iconic picture are not something she wishes to indulge in, at least not within the present book. While this may disappoint some readers, it should be quite clear that any attempt to venture into such territory would assuredly dilute the focus and much of the value of her book