Justo L. Gonzalez graduated from United Seminary in Cuba and went on to Yale for his M.A. and Ph.D, where he was the youngest person to be awarded a theology doctorate at Yale. He has served at multiple seminaries and schools of theology, including Emory. He is now retired but continues to serve as an adjunct professor of history at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Gonzalez penned The Story Of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation in the mid 80s as an accessible history of the church. I choose this book desiring to gain a greater understanding of my history as being part of the church. As an evangelical, I am tempted to often believe that there was the early church 33 AD to 500, throw away the next 1000 years as dark corruption of the church and skip to the mid-1500s and beyond. Gonzalez sheds light on the glories and marred history of the church during these 1,000 years in this volume.
Writing about 1500 years of history over multiple geographical locations in just above 400 pages is a massive undertaking. Gonzalez cuts this into four major sections: The Early Church, The Imperial Church, Medieval Christianity, and The Beginnings of Colonial Christianity. Each one of these sections is divided into smaller parts focusing on events and people that shaped particular movements and thought within Christianity. At the beginning of each section, he lays out a nice timeline displaying important events and people with corresponding dates. I will highlight particular interesting parts within each section. At the end of each, he encourages the reader toward further reading with a bibliography.
The first section Gonzalez dives into is the Early Church and swims through a well-known part of history. Here he focuses on the expanse of the church, persecution, culture and heresies. One area that I need to highlight is his section on the heresy of Marcionism. . In its simplest form it states that the God of the Old Testament was evil and the God of the New Testament is good. By nature, humanity is often attracted to it and every Christian should be familiar with this heresy since it pops up so often.
The second section focues on the building of the Imperial Church, with its important councils, monasticism controversies, and great leaders from both the East and west. Gonzalez shows just how messy the Arian controversy (Arians believe that Jesus was the first created being rather than being part of the trinity, Jehovah’s Witnesses commit this heresy) was with it going from a city dispute to being swept up by the entire empire. He also glides into a mini biography of Athanasius of Alexandria, the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism, who should be known by every Christian for his service to Christendom.
The third section covers the most history, almost a thousand years, by detailing the Church throughout Medieval Christianity. Gonzalez covers the breakdown of the Empire in the West, the consolidation of power in the Pope, decay and reform in the church, the schism between Eastern and Western Churches, the Crusades and the Renaissance. The most heart breaking to read about is the division between the Eastern and Western churches that still continues to this day.
The final and shortest section is the Beginning of Colonial Christianity, where Gonzalez guides us as European powers expand into the New World, Africa and Asia. He spends most of his time on Spanish advancement in Latin America, where he shows the cruelty of the slave trade, the horrific acts the of the Conquistadors and also the brave spirit of particular monks and priest who fought for the plight of the oppressed.
This book was quite enjoyable, as I am always a fan of history and he does a splendid job of retelling it through the lives of important saints and events. He strikes a great balance between brevity and accuracy, which few other history books manage. I will give him much praise for his last section about the spread of Church in Asia, the “New World” and Africa where he shows the mixed motives of trade and the message of the church.
Gonzalez’s work is admirable. There is much praise to be found in this introductory book, however there are two critiques I have for this work. Leaving out details is understandable, for he is writing a simple history that is not bogged down in controversies. While it is easy to follow along with a macro approach, at times I am puzzled by him leaving out fully orbed situations. For example, in the First Crusade section, he mentions that the Crusaders killed thousands of Jews but fails to state that the Church strongly condemned these actions taken by the Crusaders. Adding that qualification would give a more robust picture of what happened since what the church did and thought about that tragedy is not well-known. Also I fear at times Gonzalez falls into a postmodern view of power, to always be suspicious and never believe it can be legitimately used, especially in his section on Constantine. This viewpoint is dangerous as it threatens our acceptance and submission to God’s sovereign leadership and care of our lives through the people he calls to shepherd his flock.
Walking through time with Gonzalez has been thoroughly enjoyable, especially digging into the rich history of the Eastern Church and the spread of Christianity around the world. I recommend this book to all who wish to grow in their understanding of church history and by doing so see the great cloud of witnesses who advance the kingdom of God.