Butler Bass is a church historian with a knack of communicating text and context of the events that have helped to shape Christianity over the centuries. In addition to an friendly and comfortable writing style the format of the book was also appealing.

She breaks down different historical eras of Church history in to broad categories located within history (The Way, The Cathedral, The Word, The Quest and The River). She then talks about the nature of Christianity as it was understood in the historical context and then for each of these areas and then talks about the devotional and ethical practices that characterize the various eras she discusses.

I would recommend this book as a terrific study book for congregations and people who are interested in knowing more about where the Church has been and done while also suggesting where God might be calling it go and do.

I found the theological basis of the book solid (and not just because she’s an Episcopalian like me) and her understanding of the various streams of the church to be grounded in solid scholarship, faithful observance and broad experience.

Take the time to read this, you won’t be disappointed. I suspect this will be one I’ll refer to again and again.

Diana begins the book by telling the story of her having dinner with a friend who expressed some consternation at Diana’s ability to hold on to her faith. Her friend says, “I don’t have any trouble with Jesus. It’s all the stuff that happened after Jesus that makes me mad.” This same question rattles around the minds of many both within and without the church.

The answer for me (and for Diana) is that the true history of the Christian faith does not lay in the official history of its structures and theology. “Big C” Christianity as Diana calls it. The true history of the faith lays in the people who have faithfully lived out the message of Jesus in their everyday life. It is like a current flowing through the center of a large river. One only needs to look at the lives of various individuals throughout history to see genuine faith in practice…more often than not they are not the ones leading the Church…Big “C.”

For many, the inability to answer the tough questions of Church history (i.e. how can the church do the things it has done and still call itself Christian?) has caused many to neglect and reject history. This too has led to many problems because it creates an amnesia in the church that causes it to repeat many of the mistakes, heresies, and sinful actions of its past. Diana states, “Thus we inhabit a posttraditional world-a world of broken memory-in which some tell history badly, others do not know it at all, and still others use history to manipulate society to their own ends.”

Diana does a great job of finding some of Church history’s least noticed people (and some its most noticed people) and looking beyond the “official” history. She helps us see them as real people with real struggles, but also a real faith. She also reminds us of the importance of knowing our history…knowing OUR story.

Check out the video of Diana Butler Bass’s interview here.

By Eric Wright
I blog at themergeblog.

I was fortunate enough to take a history of mission course, however, which surveyed quite comprehensively the high points of the propagation of our faith since Adam. It occurred to me then, and even more so after having read A People’s History of Christianity, that the history I received was one marked by conquest – many times of ideas and too often of the sword. Sadly, this has been the prevailing history of our faith passed down through the ages: one that favors the powerful, reinforces institutional religion in all cases, and plays down (or ignores altogether) our more embarrassing moments.

Diana Butler Bass (former New York Times columnist and author of Christianity for the Rest of Us) writes A People’s History in direct challenge to this more popular version of Christian history, which she calls “Big-C Christianity.” According to Bass, a survey of popular understanding of church history reveals that the high points for most Christians are as follows: Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and Christian America. This version of Christianity is militant, Bass asserts, a characteristic that runs tragically counter to the values of peace, justice and hospitality that have been the centerpieces of the faith since Jesus. As her subtitle suggests, Bass is setting out to tell “the other side of the story,” one that refuses to serve “as a nostalgia trip to some halcyon faith-filled days of old when the church got it right,” but rather as

… a history of hope – that regular people often “get it” better than the rich, the famous, and the powerful. (310)

Bass’s work will immediately draw comparisons to that of historian Howard Zinn, whose 1980 book A People’s History of the United States made waves with its review and (in many cases) revision of popular American history to offer a less power-centric perspective. Bass’s and Zinn’s common overarching goal about their respective subjects is where the similarities end, however. For one, Bass has about four times the number of years to work with than Zinn, who stretches 500 years of U.S. history into nearly 700 pages of exhaustive content. Bass covers her subject in just over 300 pages, a marvelous feat considering its vastness. Second (and this is a credit to Bass), A People’s History of Christianity is more of a celebration of the streams of our faith that have “worked” than a deconstruction of that which hasn’t. As important as Zinn’s work is for this nation’s public discourse, one cannot say the same about A People’s History of the United States. What’s more, lest the reader think Bass’s book is another installment in the “A People’s History…” franchise, it isn’t. As far as I can tell, there is no connection, and Bass is merely borrowing the title with the hope that her telling of Christian history will do for Christians what Zinn’s version of American history has done for discerning Americans.

In this reviewer’s opinion, it just may. Bass’s work is highly accessible, refusing to labor through murky theological topics and opting instead for the kinds of universally appreciated stories of Christians actually living like Christ. The layout of her book is not linear, but more topical, breaking down Christian history into five parts: The Way (Early Christianity); The Cathedral (Medieval Christianity); The Word (Reformation Christianity); The Quest (Modern Christianity); and The River (Contemporary Christianity). Furthermore, she breaks each section (except the last) out into three sections: an introduction to the issues of the time, a section describing the nature of Christians’ personal faith (Devotion), and a section describing the nature of Christians’ outwardly practiced faith (Ethics). In each section, Bass takes her narrative beyond the hot-button issues of the day to the movements and conversations bubbling right under the surface. She skips over St. Patrick, for instance, opting instead for Celtic pilgrim Brendan. Her section on medieval philosopher Peter Abelard and his lover Heloise (a nun who was also Abelard’s niece) is also not a story one reads in most popular church history texts, but Bass uses their stories to illustrate how “doubt and love merged into spiritual passion.” Provocative indeed.

Lest the reader miss the proverbial forest because of a tree or two, Bass comes back time and again to a few resounding themes consistent throughout Christian history, around which we can surely unite: love, charity, hospitality, and justice.

On charity:

Charity, a word that comprises love and justice, may well be the most sublime of all Christian virtues. Of all of Jesus’s teachings and works, his compassion toward the poor, suffering, and outcast claims the admiration of those even vaguely acquainted with the Christian religion. Oddly enough, however, ministry among the meek often provokes the ire of the established church. And those who serve the poor are often misunderstood and persecuted. (141)

This passage follows Bass’s telling of a story about a minister friend of hers in Memphis who attempted to serve the poor inside the church building, only to face fierce opposition from congregants. We all know of contemporary “radicals” who are met with similar ire because of their unconventional or “messy” methods, so one then reads of the controversial Medieval sect, the Beguines, differently in light of present-day experience. In her interweaving of more recent national or personal examples into her historical narrative, Bass really is at her best. Though not in the least preachy, Bass does not shy away from offering her perspective on the way certain pieces of history ought to be applied, a practice that is very much needed in the conversation but will undoubtedly get her in trouble in certain circles.

For one, Bass is unabashedly high-church (Episcopalian), and her liturgical leanings show themselves throughout A People’s History. She is quite affirming, for instance, of the medieval church’s emphasis on architecture as a primary way of experiencing the Divine. She cannot and should not apologize for her religious heritage, but she could lose a reader or two from the more Evangelical camp as a result.

Another small question I have about Bass’s work is regarding her use of so many virtually unknown figures in Christian history. In her attempt to find those people and movements that we haven’t heard of, might Bass be taking liberties with various parts of history? Might she be undeservedly elevating a few characters to an unrealistic position in order to make her points? I am not familiar enough with Christian history to know for sure, though several of her vignettes did cause me to question. One thing’s for sure: Bass did her homework, consulting the very best previous scholarship had to offer. The proof is in her nearly 25 pages of references at the end of the book. Furthermore, the endorsements of noted Christian historian Philip Jenkins and theologian Walter Brueggemann have to count for something.

For those who wonder how reading Christian history applies to our world today, Bass has an answer in her final section on the contemporary church (1945-present). She passes over a clear opportunity to preach to us her predictions of how the postmodern church will shake out, instead choosing to “interview” a few ordinary Christians for their thoughts. This method is consistent with her aim throughout: to tell inspiring stories rather than resort to the world of dusty facts and propositions.

As one who attempts to live out my faith with a few friends outside the formal religious institution, I was moved to greater devotion and action by the stories of Christian history’s micro-movements of love, many of which flew under the radar screen until now. Bass’s telling of them has a campfire feel, and I found myself leaning into every word. A People’s History of Christianity is not simply one of the most readable and relevant works of Christian history in the last 20 years, it ought to be required reading for all Western Christians. My guess is that even a non-religious person would come away from Bass’s work with a significantly different perspective on the diverse and passionate people that follow a loving and undomesticated Messiah.

- Steve Holt

Similarly, I think my faith may be lacking because of neglecting history. As a young Pentecostal, church history started with the New Testament and then jumped to the Azuza Street Revival. When I attended a Calvary Chapel, we substituted the Jesus Movement for Azuza. When I later got involved with The Salvation Army, it was about William Booth. There is a lot more to the family history than any one story.

Diana Butler Bass has written a wonderful book called A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story. It is not a guide to institutions, but an eminently readable collection of stories about ordinary people who loved God and others down through the ages. My faith was enriched to learn more about these people who are often minor footnotes in other books, if mentioned at all. I put down the book encouraged (in the words of the author) to “go make church history” myself.

Bass writes PHC trying to incorporate some of the lesser heard voices of history, she does so to an adequate level, but as others have noted, she tends to hear only from one “side” of the unheard: those voices that seem to mirror her progressive and Christianity. Voices of those from the past of history that are slightly more conservative? They seem to go unheard.

In my estimation Bass accurately represents the voices of the past she decided to include, but did a lousy job of hearing the vast span of voices from the past, ones she may not perhaps agree with.

In the end, this history is more of Bass’ interpretation and reflection on the past, which is wonderful because she is a cheerful and lovely writer, but if readers are looking for an accurate picture of Christianities past, look elsewhere.

History is written by the winners of wars, the rich, the powerful and the amazingly successful, so any attempt to highlight a minority report through the ages can seem a bit like revisionist history and in Diana Bass’ case, she seems to be re-writing the undercurrent of history to appeal to a modern, emergent reader.

I find it troubling that this book doesn’t much talk about ‘both sides’ of the relegated Christian movements.

Bass’ discusses at length any and all ideas developed in history that can be appealing to a modern, progressive Christian, but where are the many other fringe movements and ideas of history? the ‘heresies’ and books that don’t fit so nicely into an emergent reevaluation of the past?

definitely worth the read, but only if you have already read a great overview of the ‘Big C’ Christian histories so you have a background on which ‘A people’s history’ can build. without it you get a very one sided view that over represents its importance to history.

I recommend Brian Shelley’s “Church History in Plain Language” first, then pick up a copy of ‘A People’s History of Christianity”.

Dr. Bass manages to write clearly and accurately. The book highlights encouraging stories about our faith, but she is also honest about Christanity’s shortcomings.

This book is not for graduate-level reading, however. It is very much a beginning-level history, so if you are very familiar with Christian history, don’t expect a lot of surprises.

Although Dr. Bass admits that she has an agenda in the prologue, I did wish for a slightly more objective take on Christian history. It was obvious throughout that she had a point to get across. Sometimes history read as more anecdotal than historical.

Overall, this book should be recommended for those new to Christianity or Christian history. Like I said, the book has few surprises, but it accomplishes the goal it sets out to accomplish, and for that it can be commended.

The book is divided into 5 phases of history: Early, Medieval, Reformation, Modern and Contemporary Christianity. Each section talking about events and people that made that time period what it was and is.

I was moved by the early church’s concern for justice and mercy as seen in their hospitality and forbearance in the midst of sickness and persecution. There was a epidemic in the 2nd century known as the Plague of Galen in which hundreds of thousands died in the streets. While most people were fleeing the city the Christians remained behind to help. We modern/contemporary Christians seem to be more concerned about self preservation than about loving and taking care of our neighbor. A couple years ago in our neighborhood there was a rumor going about that a certain individual had TB so some from the Christian community became panicky and began worrying about weather they may have caught it from the person and making sure they did not go near him. Somewhat a different reaction from the early church (by the way they found out the guy did not have TB-panic for nothing)

The early church took the command “love your neighbor as yourself” seriously. The writer makes this statement, “While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger.” I wonder what would happen in our churches that instead of expecting and telling a new convert that he must now quit smoking, drinking, cussing and begin attending church and tell them that they must now open their houses to the homeless, take care of the sick and feed the hungry.
The writer makes the point that people did not convert to Christianity because of the churches doctrine but because it worked- it was seen and experienced in real life.

Another part of the book that I found interesting was the emphasis upon prayer during the reformation. Prayers, not necessarily those of the reformers, but of the Catholic lay people. Many catholics who did not leave their faith began a renewing process and part of that was a revival of prayer. The prayer beads were brought in and the laity began to pray and to organize communities around the rosary. One of the results of this was the slowing down of the Protestant advance in France.

The writer characterizes the modern period (1650-1945) as a quest for truth. With summaries of people such as Albert Schweitzer, Jonathon Edwards, George Fox, Elizabeth Hooton, Juana Ines de la Cruz, John Wesley and others in their pursuit of divine truth

In Contemporary Christianity (1945 to the present) she sums up all the periods including the contemporary period as saying,
“In each period of Christian history particular images or orientations seem to capture the spirit of the faith. Through time Christianity could be described as the way, a cathedral, the word, or a quest. Some scholars want to depict contemporary Christian faith as a quarrel . But I prefer to think of it as a river, water rising and overflowing its banks. A fluid faith.” p.292

This is a 5 star book. I highly recommend it. Easy reading, interesting stories without getting all bogged down with dates etc., informational and good for both laymen and pastors.

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