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Niebuhr's last and favorite category, "Christ and culture in paradox," has always been the most difficult to define. Brian Moynahan's The Faith: A History of Christianity (Doubleday, 2002) may or may not fit. Moynahan, a journalist with a history degree from Cambridge, gives no indication of his theological beliefs, so he may well be looking at Christ and culture from outside Christianity (not a stance Niebuhr seeks to address). Whether or not the paradox view is his own, however, he describes a history full of irony and tension, the divine and the debased. "There is something of the wolf to the religion that adores the Lamb," he writes in the introduction, noting that the label "Christian" has been worn by "crusaders and pacifists, mystics, hermits, jolly friars and joyless puritans, polygamists, flagellants, missionaries both sensitive and crass, misogynists, heroines, bigots, popes, emperors, and the frankly deranged."

Moynahan's story, like Schmidt's but unlike Garlow's, is intensely human. It is not, fortunately, rigidly humanistic; for example, Moynahan expresses doubt that Jesus ever meant to claim divinity (2) but later states without hedging that the Resurrection "was the evidence of Christ's divinity" (19). Still, theology is not Moynahan's main concern, as he is not seeking to illuminate God's work in the world or trace the development of true faith through many dangers, toils, and snares. He is interested in the faith and the snares, the interplay of factors that can lead to development, decline, or an unsettling mix of the two.

The scope and heft of The Faith (at 800 pages it is nearly as long as the other two books combined) make it difficult to adequately describe here, but one topic illustrates Moynahan's approach. On the subject of early Christian social ethics, the author first describes Jesus' example, taking the gospel narratives basically at face value. The author also notes directives from Paul, particularly in the epistles whose Pauline authorship scholars deem most certain (Galatians, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Philippians).

Then Moynahan delves into post-biblical history to show how human error obscured the New Testament ideals. Galatians 3:28 proposes radical equality of the sexes, and this principle bore some important fruit, but before long, "Christian sects were to become quite as patriarchal as Judaism" (35). The same verse, along with several episodes from Jesus' life, proposes a radical social egalitarianism as well, yet early Christian communities continued the practice of slavery and showed little political ambition. "The faith was a spiritual revolution," Moynahan writes, "but it was meek and intensely conservative in the face of temporal authority and the social order" (61).

By focusing on the interplay of Christlike ideals and an all-too-human body of believers, from the dawn of Christianity to the present, Moynahan tells a believable story. It's messy and frequently disappointing, but what else can one expect from "a faith exposed to the inconstancies and energies of mankind" (730)? Paradox rings true in history, too.

1. Christian History took a broader look at different ways of writing the church's story in issue 72: How We Got Our History.
   
   
2. Christianity Today recently reviewed a reissue of Christ and Culture here: In the World, but … , by John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
   
   
3. All of the books mentioned in this essay are available at our online partner store, Christianbook.com.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

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