My Life in Great Books: Church History

“The church has often been renewed in spiritual life because she was reminded of her history.”

In my introduction to this series, I presented the value of Christian literature in general. I now propose to consider various categories of that literature, beginning with church history. The Bible itself is in many ways a church history; it tells a story. In the Bible, the story of the kingdom of God in the world—its eras and epochs, its heroic figures and villains, its triumphs and tragedies—is used to teach us the lessons of our faith. There was never any reason to think that Christians would not continue to profit from the study of the history of the kingdom of God as it continued after biblical times. No interpretation of that history will be as infallible as the history we have in the Bible, but many of its lessons, encouragements, and warnings are so obvious that they can benefit all Christians!

The church has often been renewed in spiritual life because she was reminded of her history. The Reformation was, in part, a theological and spiritual revival prompted by the rediscovery of the church’s past. The great reformers were historians as well as theologians. They mastered the story of patristic Christianity and used it to critique the life of the church in their own day.

One of the principal instruments of revival in early nineteenth-century Scotland was the publication of Thomas McCrie’s Life of John Knox, a book that reminded the Scottish church of its Reformation inheritance and its calling to prove faithful to it. The Réveil, the renewal of biblical Christianity in mid-nineteenth-century France, Switzerland, and Germany, was given great impetus by the publication of J.H. Merle D’Aubigné’s History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century—a history much more influential because D’Aubigné was a first-class scholar who wrote for a lay audience. The exhilarating story of the rediscovery of the gospel in the sixteenth century inspired the church again in the nineteenth century. The same might be said of the reawakening of English-speaking Reformed Christianity in the years following the Second World War. In many respects, the rediscovery of the history of the Reformation and, even more, of the Second Reformation—the period of English Puritanism—and of the Great Awakening in the eighteenth century, was the vanguard of that renewal.

What has been true of entire churches and movements of renewal has often been true of individual believers who have had their hearts stirred and faith strengthened by reading what God has done in the past. There are many Christians today, I fear, who think very superficially about what it means to be a Christian because they have no standard by which to measure the Christian life. They are largely unaware of how Christians have lived, how devout they have been, how much they have accomplished, and how they have defied the standards of the world. You need church history to teach you that and to raise your sights!

A complete novice may wish to begin with S.M. Houghton’s Sketches from Church History, a sprightly written and illustrated overview of the story of the church from its new beginnings after Pentecost to the modern period. For early church history, which is often terra incognita for modern evangelicals, there is no better place to begin than with the fourth-century Church History of Eusebius, now published in a new and easy-to-read translation by Paul Maier with commentary, pictures, charts, and maps. F.F. Bruce’s The Spreading Flame is an accessible history that takes the story through the eighth century, concentrating on the gospel’s advance toward England. M.A. Smith’s From Christ to Constantine covers the same ground in even less space. 

There are many Christians today, I fear, who think very superficially about what it means to be a Christian because they have no standard by which to measure the Christian life.

For someone interested in Reformation history there are many possibilities, from small, one-volume manuals, such as Owen Chadwick’s third volume in the Pelican History of the Church, to major studies like Diarmaid MacCulloch's magisterial work The Reformation: A History (from which I have read sections for several years now at the Men’s Night of Prayer before Reformation Sunday). MacCulloch does not share our viewpoint as evangelical Christians—but he has provided us with an authoritative and sympathetic history that is magnificently written. I have read many books on the Reformation but have learned many interesting things I did not know reading MacCulloch.

Scottish church history, which is especially important for Presbyterians, is covered very well in A.M. Renwick’s little book The Story of the Scottish Reformation, and in J.D. Douglas’s Light in the North. Mark Noll has given us A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. George Hutchinson, a PCA minister, published a splendid history of American Presbyterianism, The History Behind the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. In his Evangelicalism Divided, Iain Murray provides a disturbing cautionary story—and a riveting read—of developments in English-speaking evangelicalism during the second half of the twentieth century. 

I have provided only a tiny selection of a vast library. We haven’t even begun to ponder more specific histories. Consider, for example, Princeton Seminary—a highly-regarded and very readable history written by our own David Calhoun (a church history professor at Covenant Theological Seminary). This book itself is something of a history of the Presbyterian Church in the United States as well as an introduction to a number of American Presbyterianism’s greatest figures. Bradley Longfield’s The Presbyterian Controversy covers a shorter period and tells the sad tale of evangelical capitulation to unbelief in the Northern Presbyterian Church during the early twentieth century. The eminent historian George Marsden tells the same dismal story in fascinating detail with regard not to a particular denomination, but to the institutions of higher learning in the United States, in his The Soul of the American University and his history of Fuller Theological Seminary, Reforming Fundamentalism. All of these books are interesting, they are relatively easy if not very easy to read, and they are valuable for the lessons they teach, the inspiration they convey, and the way in which they confirm that the spiritual world of the Bible is the same world in which we live today. 

The difficulty I faced in writing this column was to cull the list of possible volumes to an acceptable length. Looking over those I have mentioned, I can say with confidence that those who read these books or others like them will have a grasp of the church’s history. Its lessons will enrich their understanding and appreciation of their faith, and will sharpen their powers of critical judgment concerning the issues facing the church in our day.

Books Recommended in This Article

Life of John Knox, by Thomas McCrie

History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, by J.H. Merle D’Aubigné

Sketches from Church History, by S.M. Houghton

Church History, by Eusebius (translated by Paul Maier)

The Spreading Flame, by F.F. Bruce

From Christ to Constantine, by M.A. Smith

Pelican History of the Church, Vol. 3, by Owen Chadwick

The Reformation: A History, by Diarmaid MacCulloch

The Story of the Scottish Reformation, by A.M. Renwick

Light in the North, by J.D. Douglas

A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, by Mark Noll

History Behind the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, by George Hutchinson

Evangelicalism Divided, by Iain Murray

Princeton Seminary, by David Calhoun

The Presbyterian Controversy, by Bradley Longfield

The Soul of the American University, by George Marsden

Reforming Fundamentalism, by George Marsden