Mark Noll is professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. He has taken up the challenge of constructing a “Church history” textbook for undergraduate college students in order to compress the most vital historical information into the confines of a typical college semester. In addition to a helpful introduction, he includes 13 chapters that unveil some of the essential milestones or turning points in Christian history, and an “afterward” where Noll briefly touches on events of the last century. Each chapter has between four and ten study guide questions, with additional questions of practical application for the church today. Additionally, each chapter concludes with a supplemental list of “further readings” to guide the student towards additional resources that will expand the ideas presented.

Even though the reviewer would have chosen a couple different events in history, he offers no criticism for the historical turning points Noll has presented. Chapter one explains how the Church moves from the pages of the Bible into the narratives of the early Church, the cannon of scripture, and the early creeds. Chapters two and three dig into the story of Constantine, the challenges of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, elaborating on the nature of Christ and the political-ecclesiastical tensions of the Church. Chapter four explores the rise of monasticism, the Rule of St. Benedict, and the ways that these have served the development of the Church.

Stepping over a couple centuries, chapter five guides the student into the significance of Charlemagne’s coronation and the authority of the papacy. Then, stepping over two more centuries, chapter six unpacks the East-West tension, which will eventuate in the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions of Christianity. Then, only a couple pages are given to the catastrophe of the crusades.

Another giant step in the timeline brings the student to the Reformation. Chapter seven finds Luther in the throes of defending his case against corruption and quickly touches on the main points of the reformers. Chapter eight elaborates the parallel controversies in England as Henry VIII seeks both an heir to succeed him and the headship of the Church of England. This chapter also adds a bit of background of the Anabaptist movement, which may make this era confusing for the college student, because too much new information is introduced at one time, without fully delineating it. Chapter nine describes the Catholic Reformation and the role of Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuits.

Chapter ten strides over a couple more centuries and begins with the story of the Wesley brothers, then elaborates on evangelicalism and pietism. Chapter eleven quickly marches through the French Revolution, the rise of Modernity, and then the reactions of the Church towards these. Chapter twelve describes the expansion of the Missions Movement as it reaches into Asia and Africa. The thirteenth chapter draws attention to the Second Vatican Council and the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism. And then, the afterword briefly mentions the Pentecostal Movement, the rise of women in ministry, the work of Bible translation, and the survival of the Church under communism.

Any teacher who has labored to teach 2000 years of history in a 3 credit course has walked away knowing that too much has been left undone and unsaid. There will always be gaps in chronology and whole topics left unexplored. In this book, Noll gives us his attempt to pare down the whole story into what he deems to be the most important events in Church history, in order to give his students some benchmarks to measure the whole. These benchmarks will provide a conceptual framework for further information to be added in the never-ending study of history. I have walked away from this book with some ideas of how I will modify my own Church history courses in the upcoming semesters.

Reviewed by John Miller

Preview the third edition of Turning Points: https://books.google.com/books?id=7rJvhpg0S9sC

Publisher’s page: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/turning-points-3rd-edition/223385

Thomas C. Oden, Turning around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements are Changing the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 270 pages.

This latest book by Thomas C. Oden gathers together for the first time the prevailing themes and documents of the confessing and renewal movements within mainline denominations. It also includes a case study concerning the most difficult issue confronting these movements, the property rights of local churches. This book was inspired by a 2003 Christianity Today lead article called “Turning the Mainline Around” with a cover picture of a huge ship being turned around by a tiny tugboat. This image of the ship and tugboat is also on this book’s cover.

This significant change may seem ironic, but it is happening. The mainline churches, Oden argues, are indeed being “turned around” by ordinary church members who are orthodox and evangelical in their faith. These confessing/renewal movements are growing rapidly. They involve a major ecumenical realignment never seen before in American church history.

Oden has the laity in mind in writing this book. Oden also wanted his book to be useful for onlookers from the wider evangelical world, not just for the benefit of the faithful mainline church member. Within this largely uncharted territory, this book serves as an unexpected and reassuring “newsflash” for the wider evangelical world concerning what is happening to their distant relations in the faith.

Oden approaches his task here primarily as an archivist. The renewal of interest in orthodoxy and evangelical teaching has garnered great attention. This attention has not been seen in the last one hundred years. Oden believes this is the right time to offer a true account of these events. The mainline confessing/renewal movements must speak for themselves without any editorial commentary.

Oden’s message is divided into six parts (p. 15). Those parts and his explanation of those parts are, I feel, the best summary of this book. The parts are: “Coming Home in the Mainline,” “Inspecting Ground Zero,” “Trekking to the Other Side of the Stream,” “Relearning the ABCs,” “Coming to the Table,” and “Paying the Mortgage.” Oden’s journey begins with the reader being at the homeplace – mainline denominations. The reader sniffs the smoke from the debris of ground zero – the destruction. The reader then explores while journeying to the other side of the mainstream and then back to the fundamentals – confessing/renewal movements. The reader then attends the great banquet – confession at the Lord’s Table. Finally, the reader appears in court to deal with legal issues – ownership of local church property. In other words, there must be a return to the home to survey the damage. There then must be a reinvestigation of how the neighbors coped with the crisis. This ultimately leads back to the primitive classroom to relearn the values that once made the neighborhood great. This will then lead to a coming again to the great banquet that unifies the community under a common history. Once that happens, the only thing left to do is the unpleasant task of sorting out who owns the property now.

I am attracted to this book because of two main reasons. The first reason is that I see an overarching theme underlying everything discussed within this book. Oden calls it “spine.” (p. 17). Since these issues are so controversial, it takes a person with a real backbone to attempt an examination of them. I believe Oden indeed has the determination and courage to do it. The second reason is that Oden draws his illustrations, specifically the illustrations involving church property, from the United Methodist Church. Oden is a conservative, evangelical United Methodist. I am one also. I can personally identify with his illustrations because we both share the same denominational heritage, and my concerns for the direction of the United Methodist Church are similar to the concerns he expresses.