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While understanding history has always been an essential task for God's people, rapid changes within the past two generations of Christianity have challenged many of our assumptions and methods for studying the past.
Scott Sunquist invites readers to join him for a capstone course in historical thinking from a master teacher. Highlighting both the continuity and the diversity within the Christian movement over the centuries, he identifies three key concepts for framing church history: time, cross, and glory. These themes shed light to help us discern how the Jesus movement developed from the first century to the present, through an explosion of contextual expressions. Tracing these concepts through the centuries, we learn from the stories of Christians reflecting the glories of God's kingdom-and from their failures.
The Shape of Christian History
Scott Sunquist invites readers to join him for a capstone course in historical thinking from a master teacher. Highlighting both the continuity and the diversity within the Christian movement over the centuries, he identifies three key concepts for framing church history: time, cross, and glory. These themes shed light to help us discern how the Jesus movement developed from the first century to the present, through an explosion of contextual expressions. Tracing these concepts through the centuries, we learn from the stories of Christians reflecting the glories of God's kingdom-and from their failures.
The Shape of Christian History
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Reviews
"Much contemporary writing implies that there is no such thing as Christianity, only a bewildering multiplicity of local appropriations of what was once the religion of the Western world. Scott Sunquist's book provides a telling riposte. Both profoundly theological and historically well-informed, it powerfully argues the case that the Jesus movement today is held together by the same convictions as it was at the beginning-that history begins with divine creation, turns on divine intervention in the person of Jesus Christ, and ends with the glory of the completed kingdom of God."
Brian Stanley, professor of world Christianity at the University of Edinburgh
"In this elegantly crafted book, Sunquist distills decades of research in the historical materials of global Christianity in order to convey the theological meaning they hold. In them, he finds the concepts of time (creation and incarnation), cross (suffering and mission), and glory (humility and hope). They inform how we tell and, more important, live the story. Rich with quotable lines and pastoral insights, Sunquist gives us a superior book that will serve as a resource for people of faith everywhere."
Grant Wacker, Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Christian History at Duke Divinit