The Best books about CHURCH HISTORY

[headheart]

May I suggest going to some publishers and picking out your own books. Publishers such as TAN, Ignatius Press, Christendom Press, Sophia Press.
They have loads of books and many reprints. Enjoy!

By TAN you must mean, 'TAN Books - traditional Catholic'

By Ingnatius Press you must mean, Ignatius Press

By Christendom Press you must mean, 'Christendom Press'

'For over twenty five years, the Christendom Press has dedicated itself to the defense of Christian society and the renewal of Catholic intellectual life.'

By Sophia Press you must mean, 'Sophia Institute Press'

'Catholic Classic and Other Faithful Catholic Books.'

This reminds me a little of what I felt like as a young man, when I wandered into the Sunday School Bookcentre and could find nothing at all by Roman Catholic writers. Now that was thirty years ago, and these days you can go into any Christian bookstore and get a wide diversity of litreture from all mainstream denominations. I think your links are little heavy on one side, and you might do well to get a varied menu.

Peace,
HH.

[headheart]

Good book on the church in the Reformation period. Make sure you read a couple of other major introductions to the reformation period that come from different perspectives, to balance out the biases of MacCulloch.

I agree. Reading one stream of indoctrination is always harmful to one's reason. Getting a rounded education is a good thing and it would not harm to get perspectives of those who were unbelieving historians too. It always helps to get an outside perspective, or one is in the danger of achieving a sterile perspective, or lopsided view of things.

Peace,
HH.

[ren47]

I recently did a study for my History about popular piety and the medieval church. Two books that were particularly good were The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy and [I]Religion and the Decline of Magic[/i] by Keith Thomas (the links take you to the Amazon.com pages, btw).

These focus on the beliefs of both the Church and the people of pre-industrial Britain, and are really fascinating. Thomas's book also has an interesting veiw on witchcraft. I recommend them, even if they are not exactly what you requested. The beliefs of the laity are always important in shaping Church history.

[mostlyharmless]

I recently did a study for my History about popular piety and the medieval church. Two books that were particularly good were The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy and [i]Religion and the Decline of Magic[/i] by Keith Thomas (the links take you to the Amazon.com pages, btw).

These focus on the beliefs of both the Church and the people of pre-industrial Britain, and are really fascinating. Thomas's book also has an interesting veiw on witchcraft. I recommend them, even if they are not exactly what you requested. The beliefs of the laity are always important in shaping Church history.

Duffy's book is very important. It ended up changing a lot of what was believed about the history of the reformation in England. There is still a lot of ongoing research into what actually happened and the causes and so Duffy's views need a bit of context. He was challenging the accepted positions with that book so it may be overstated in places and his views are generally called revisionist.

[timspong]

I am actually doing one of those iTunes U courses from RTS seminary on Christian History and it is the best I have done so far. Very detailed but also quite entertaining. I highly recommend it.

http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/...lic.1380369647

[aegis]

I enjoyed:

Professor Justo L. Gonzalez: Story of Christianity: volume I and II and his History of Christian thoughts: Both these books are easy to read and very concise and gave a broad overview of Church history

Another book I liked is : "Story of Christian theologies: twenty centuries of Tradition and Reform" by Dr. Roger Olsen. This is more an overview of theology as it goes through the years of church history.

[chrisjames]

Sorry, ALL points of view are biased. Your best bet is to read as extensively as possible, from the East as well as the West. Here's a snippet from the East.

Just had a quick glance at that site, it looks very promising - thank you so much for the link.

[Stefcui]

I started reading Philip Schaff's books but have taken a bit of a break from them, primarily because I was informed by certain Roman Catholic readers that there are better books on the subject, and of course there is the rich library of the Early Church fathers.

As Schaff is not a Catholic, and sometimes exposes skullduggery of Catholics, his writings are understandably frowned upon by many Catholics. I have Schaff's 38 volume on the Early Church Fathers, both in hardback and digital, and they are amazing.

As I am not rolling in the buckaroos, but am very interested in reading some good books on the subject, I would greatly welcome...

The Ancient Christian Commentary set is also very good. I have found, to make any sense of the fathers, a good way to start is with the 1st century books (Clement of Rome, King Abgar), and read the fathers in chronological order (Didache; Ignatius; Polycarp; Hermas; Justin Martyr; Theophilus; Irenaeus; Tertullian, etc). That way you can discern how and when differnet doctrines started to emerge which were not original teachings from the Apostles. An example is how and when the doctrine of the papacy developed. If you ask a Catholic to answer about the papacy, his answer will be different to a Protestant's. By reading the ECF books personally it is harder for someone to deceive you with their opinions or sectarian doctrines. I believe every Christian should do this anyway due to the amount of deception everywhere.

Another good book is by Rufinus, On the Adulteration of Books. He mentions that many books were altered by scribes and gnostics, so you need to be careful with assuming that they actually said what is read. Rufinus gives examples and rules to follow to detect and discern scribal alterations. He is invaluable (IMO).