University of Calgary prof reviews Philip Jenkins' book: The Lost History of Christianity.


Adapted from the Jesuit magazine, "America." January 5 - 12, 2009. Professor Wayne A. Holst reviews this work on pages 30 - 31 of the BOOKS section. The editor labels Holst's review "Once - Thriving Centers of Faith."

"Some months ago, my wife and I stood in the square facing the dome and western facade of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.

"All of this prompted me to think of the rich and varied historical influences of Christian faith on the church in Europe.

"I realized that much of this inheritance was from now largely deserted communities in Asia and Africa.

"Strong centers of Christianity had once existed to the east and south, but these had now but a flickering vestige of their former vitality.

"For 1,000 years many other Christianities had once existed beyond Europe.

"We in the West have been inclined to dismiss them as peripheral at best, or at worst to reject them as churches embracing Monophysite or Nestorian heresies.

"The original Christian centers were in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

"Jenkins poses penetrating questions concerning both the extinction and the resiliency of Christian communities.

"Declines, notes Jenkins, were often the result of sectarian conflict, introversion, the lack of a missional vision, genuine groundedness in new cultures - - even geographic location."

And now a real kicker!

And, yes, Virginia! It can indeed happen here in the so - called American Catholic Church...


Some Christian communities adapted themselves into irrelevance ...


"Some communities were refined by the fires of persecution while others adapted themselves into irrelevance.

"Human standards of what constitutes success may not match God's criteria.

"Our definitions of success and failure are not ultimate or definitive, says Jenkins.

"To possess a mature understanding of the faith we need to recognize the meaning of disaster and defeat as well as triumph and growth.

"We need a theology of extinction, he holds, not just a missiology of continual Christian expansion.

"My wife and I left the square of St. Mark in Venice and traveled in our imaginations to another famous sacred place -- the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

"At one time this magnificent edifice was a Christian church.

"Now it is a major Islamic mosque.

"Will St. Mark's in Venice remain a Christian basilica?

"Will the Hagia Sophia forever be a mosque?

"There are no earthly guarantees, says Jenkins.

"Yet the chain of memory is itself a kind of resurrection."

A good read, profe ... ¡Gracias! :)