Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia—and How It Died (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 315 pages, ISBN 9780061472800.

If you would read back-to-back, as I did recently, the two books reviewed here, one by a historian of the Crusades and another by a Church historian on the Eastern Church, you will surely broaden your knowledge of world history and gain a surprising perspective on both ecumenism and the prospects of peace with religious extremism.

Both of these books are a good overview of the battlefield called “jihad” by Muslims and “Crusade” by Christians and contain insights into the mistakes made as well as ways people have been successful in working together, though the mistakes far outweigh what went right. Jonathan Phillips is the expert on Crusades history and European medieval secular and religious politics, while Philip Jenkins addresses religious matters in-depth.

If we might borrow from Socrates’ saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” we ought to grasp that no movement in the history of humanity was either simple or pure. Phillips does a good job of sustaining the point that both the call to Crusade by popes and the response from the nobles and people was a mixture of sincerely held religious beliefs and the desire for success, power and wealth. Moderns like to say that the Crusades show what is wrong with religion and the Church, but leave out (probably from ignorance) that the Crusades began with a request from Christians in the Middle East, not a European desire for a blood frenzy. However, what Pope Urban II in 1095 decided to do with the appeal from Emperor Alexius of Constantinople and each and every occasion for “taking the cross’ until the reconquest of Granada in 1492 was a mixture of piety and pride resulting in the waste of human lives as well as multiple failures in the goals they hoped to achieve. For example, what the Emperor had in mind was a special forces team of perhaps 300 knights but what happened was one of history’s first carefully orchestrated international public relations campaigns, resulting in an army of tens of thousands of princes and peasants on a long march to Jerusalem. The misdeeds and missteps along the way are well known, but Phillips’ research is highly informative and I learned a great deal. As he points out, it is amazing that those in the First Crusade were successful at all, yet they were the most successful of all.

Philip Jenkins, “Companions of Life: A Supple Faith” Christian Vision Project, Books & Culture 13:2 (March/April 2007), pages 9-18.

Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, is one of the most invigorating voices currently investigating the present state and future fate of global Christianity. Having read his work (e.g., The Next Christendom) and heard him speak (at a Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting) I have come to appreciate both his wit and wisdom, humor and insight. Hopefully, he would appreciate my ideological identification of him as the “Mr. Fantastic” of contemporary Christian studies! Mr. Fantastic, the leader of Marvel Comics’ superhero team “Fantastic Four” (since 1961) and in two major motion pictures to date (2005, 2007), is a scientific genius and incredibly flexible, able to stretch his body into great lengths and shapes. In an exciting scene from the 2005 film he contains his unruly friend, “The Thing,” who is huge, hard, and amazingly strong, by wrapping himself around him until he cannot move. Thus he proves that flexibility and mobility can overcome brute strength and sheer size. And here we have Philip Jenkins’ “supple faith.” But lest we allow my comic book illustration to mislead, let it now be known that Jenkins is most serious and should be taken so by readers. Recognizing his expertise in the area of Christian mission, Books & Culture printed his “provocative answer,” as they called it, to their question, “What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God’s mission in the world?” And indeed, his answer is must reading for those most interested in contemporary Christian mission.

Philip Jenkins

Jenkins begins by noting European and American Christian missions have been astonishingly successful around the world; so much so, in fact, that the demographics and dynamics of global Christian identity have been significantly transformed. The majority of Christianity now resides outside the global North inside the global South. Consequently, Jenkins recommends rethinking mission. First, “we Northerners” need to better appreciate our place in the wider Christian context. We do not represent the norm within Christianity and may over time become more marginalized. The average or ordinary Christian today lives in poverty in a non-stable nation-state probably without a real priority on human rights. This profile calls for a reorientation of priorities. According to Jenkins, although we don’t need to completely give up on gospel proclamation quite yet, we’ve done a good basic job of reaching the world and now need to consider our “primary obligation” (original italics) that of helping the many who are already Christians improve their dire and dreadful living circumstances. Also, rather than thinking exclusively in terms of foreign missions, we need to take account of opportunities provided by globalization and immigration bringing former missionary prospects to our own shores instead. Finally, we might also begin to think in terms of “reconversion.” Countries and even continents once prominently considered Christian are experiencing a “dechristianization” process. So then, for example, how to “rekindle the ancient flames” in the faith of Europe could be an extremely important project.