This book is a practical response to the experience of teaching in a variety of different settings from university undergraduates to parish groups. This book thus adopts an approach radically different to that of many general Church histories in terms of length, structure and presentation.
The broad underlying theme of this book is the interaction between Christianity and the secular world, exploring how one has shaped and been shaped by the other, reflecting the title of the book. In order to achieve this, the book does not attempt to cover the whole of Christian history (this has been done frequently by others), but rather it focuses on a number of specific themes and chronological periods. The four themes are Belief, Practice, Organisation and Propagation. There are four chronological divisions, chosen as pivotal in the development of Christianity, and reflecting the conventional divisions of history into ancient, medieval, early and later modern. This enables the book to be used as either a general introduction to Christian history or as a starting point for further investigation of one or more periods. The periods are: The Imperial Church (300-500) The Medieval Church (1050-1250), The Reformation Church (1450-1650) The Modern Church (1800-2000).
Included in the book are maps, timelines, quotations from primary source material, a glossary and a further reading section.
